Pieces
After Lily stumbles upon a cursed first year in the corridor, it is a race against time to find out who attacked the boy. With more and more students cursed each day, will Lily be able to stop it before it's too late?
Cracks in the Surface
Lily Evans tried to control her panic and racing thoughts by taking a deep breath and releasing it slowly, the way her mother used to do. With her head still spinning and her mind unable to completely grasp what she was witnessing, she wiped her clammy left hand on her school robes and took one final deep breath.
Instead of exhaling slowly, she raised her wand to her throat, muttered a spell and then, in a voice much larger and louder than her own that was left reverberating off of the stone walls of the corridor, said one word: "Stop!"
Immediately, heads whipped around to see who had spoken. By the time Lily had reversed the spell on her voice box, 16 first year students stood staring at her, panic clearly written on their faces. She swallowed hard and quickly took in the scene before her.
In the midst of the panic, the terrified first years had dropped their belongings and, unsure of where to go, tripped over everything in their path. The resulting mess left the stone floor barely visible beneath bags, books, parchment and even broken ink bottles. The students themselves were a mess as well. Their faces were ashen white and many of them were crying.
Finally, she noticed the cause of all of the chaos. She dropped her own bag on the floor and rushed to the small group huddled near the corner. She pushed the thoughts that threatened to send her over the edge of calmness and back into panic down in her mind and focused on the situation before her.
Lying on his back, eyes closed and a small dribble of blood tracing the way from the corner of his mouth to his chin was a first year boy. Lily could clearly see that he was breathing, and that it wasn't labored. It looked as though the boy had been knocked out by his fall, if, in fact, he had fallen.
She looked at the faces of the students around her, also first year Ravenclaws. The first girl that she looked at backed up, shaking her head, and refused to talk. Irritated, Lily snapped, "Someone needs to tell me what happened right now."
She looked back at the girl, but she had taken off running down the corridor, stumbling slightly on the mess.
"I…I don't know. He was down where I got here," one boy said. "I was one of the first people here, he was already down."
Lily looked around expectantly at the other students. Finally, a girl spoke up from a nearby doorway. "I didn't see who it was, but someone cursed him."
"Cursed him? What kind of curse. What did he say?" Lily asked, trying to keep the panic out of her voice.
The girl began toying with her dark brown ponytail. "I don't know what he said, but I know that he threatened the girl that just ran away. He said that she'd be next."
Lily gathered her thoughts for a second. Turning to a boy sitting cross legged on the floor next to her, she asked, "Do you know where the seventh year charms classroom is?"
The boy shook his head sadly. "I'm only a first year!" he cried.
"It's ok," Lily assured him, although she wasn't quite sure of that herself just yet. "Does anyone where that classroom is?"
"I do!" a tall girl who Lily recognized as a second year Gryffindor spoke up, "It's just around the corner and three doors down!"
Lily nodded. "That's right. You need to go there. There's a class there right now. I need you to bring me Professor Flickwit and James Potter."
"Right."
"Who can find their way to the hospital wing?" Lily asked the younger students, wondering why on earth she was the only person who had happened upon this mess. "I need someone to run and get Madame Pomfrey, as fast as you can."
Two boys took off down the corridor in the opposite direction of the girl. Lily looked around at the other students. There were still about ten of them standing and staring at her.
"Does anyone know this boy's name?"
"Jake," the boy who she had originally asked to go find the charms professor and Head Boy answered. "He was my best friend."
"Well, Jake is going to be ok," Lily said, patting the boy's hand. "We're getting everything under control."
The boy nodded, but looked skeptically at his friend. He was still breathing evenly, as though he were simply taking a nap on the cold, stone floor. The small spot of blood, which Lily assumed was from where he hit his head, or maybe even where a spell had hit him, was beginning to dry.
The racing thoughts in her head seemed to be clearing now as she looked around at the remaining students in the corridor. Their faces where still pale and terrified, and a few were still crying. Lily couldn't blame them, after all, she wanted to cry, too.
"Can you do me a favor?" She asked the boy sitting next to her. He nodded his head, but didn't take his eyes off of his friend, Jake. "Will you go and stand there and tell me when you can see the professor?"
Reluctantly the boy stood up and made his way to the corner, his eyes trained on the hallway in front of him.
Lily knew that if it was her best friend lying motionless on the ground she wouldn't want to be separated, but she also knew that she was calmer now that she had busied herself with tasks, and that giving the boy something to focus on other than his friend would help him.
"How about we start clearing up this mess?" Lily said gently to the other students. "It will make it easier for Madame Pomfrey and Professor Flitwick." The first years surrounding her seemed to be relieved to have something to do other than stand there and watch their fallen classmate.
"They're coming!"
Lily's head shot up just in time to see the small boy standing guard at the corner waving to someone down the hall that she couldn't see yet. She could hear their pounding footsteps growing closer and closer, though.
"James!" Lily called as soon as she saw his messy black hair emerge. He scanned the destroyed hallway and found her kneeling over a small blonde boy. He nearly stopped in his tracks, but continued on and came to a sliding stop next to her.
"What happened?"
"I don't know. I was late for class and I came around the corner. Where's Flitwick?" Lily asked suddenly, realizing that only James was present.
"He's getting Dumbledore. He sent me to help you."
Lily nodded and continued with the story she abruptly finished. "His name is Jake. I turned and just saw stuff everywhere. They were all yelling and tripping over each other. One girl ran away, another one said that she was threatened by whoever cursed this boy." Lily ran her hand through her now tangled hair.
James let out a small whistle. "Whoa," was all he had to say. Then, "what do you have them doing?"
"Two boys went for Pomfrey. I told the rest to clean up the mess so that they had something to do other than stare at this poor boy."
"Miss Evans? Mr. Potter? Where is he?" Lily's stood and, resisting the urge to hug the school healer, gestured down to the floor where she and James had been guarding the boy.
"This is how I found him. I haven't moved him and no one has touched him."
Madame Pomfrey knelt where Lily had been moments before. "And you say he was cursed? What kind of curse?"
"I don't know! It was already over when I got here. The girl over by that classroom told me she thought he was cursed. Apparently a girl actually saw it happen, but she ran away. She said she was threatened by whoever did this."
"Professor Dumbledore, over here," James said, flagging the old professor down.
He hurried over to the where the boy lay on the floor motionless except for his breathing, never once taking his eyes off of him. "Thank you, Miss Evans. You've done a lovely job here. If you could tend to the others?"
It was more of an order than a question, and Lily understood that. She nodded her head solemnly, though she was sure he wouldn't see. His eyes remained locked on the small boy. Lily stood and rubbed her arms awkwardly while she thought of the best course of action.
The mess on the floor was nearly straightened out by now and the students were huddling uncertainly watching the headmaster and the healer kneeling over the body of a friend. Lily took a deep breath and made a decision.
"James," she said lowly, "we need to get these kids out of here. They don't need to be seeing what is happening."
James nodded in agreement, and then pointed to the classroom. Lily gave a smile of acknowledgement as thought to say, "You read my mind," and then gathered the first years.
"Ladies and gentlemen," she said, hoping her voice sounded authoritative, but not harsh. "I need you to please go into this classroom and have a seat." The students looked from her to James and then filed into the room, still completely silent.
Lily took a deep breath. There she was in her second week as Head Girl, and already something horrible had happened on her watch. She felt a comforting hand on her shoulder, and she muttered a quick "thanks" to James before going into the classroom herself.
She and James situated themselves at the front of the room, facing the younger students. It took all of her willpower not to cry right then and there. She had to hold it together, though. They were eleven years old, and while she was only seventeen, it certainly fell on her shoulders to keep the situation in control.
"My name is Lily," she started, and the students looked up at her desperately, as though they were waiting for her to tell them what to do now, how to get over what they had stumbled upon in the hallway on their way to class. "My name is Lily," she said again, "and this is James. If you didn't already know, we are Head Boy and Girl this year."
A few of the young students nodded their heads, but most remained as still as a statue, as though they too had been cursed like the boy in the hallway.
"We need to know," James started speaking and all eyes turned to him, "what exactly you saw."
The room remained silent as they looked around at each other, unsure of how to go on.
"Why don't you write it down," Lily said suddenly. "Write down everything you know and then we can use that to figure out what happened."
A few students moved to grab their quills and parchment from their bags, but most still stayed still as though they were in shock.
"If we want to find out who did this to your friend, who did this to Jake, we need to know what you know," James said, his voice soft and his eyes imploring. More students reached for their things and began scribbling, slowly at first, and then more fiercely.
"Thank you," Lily said quietly, offering a small smile to James.
Lily and James, for the most part, got along through their years at Hogwarts, but very rarely had either taken the other seriously. It was a big adjustment for both of them to be head students together. Lily had a hard time believing the things that James said because of his reputation as a jokester, but, she thought to herself, it wasn't so bad. When push came to shove, he did what needed to be done, and that was what was important.
"Do we need to put our names on these?" a girl with short blonde hair asked, her face contorted with worry.
Lily smiled reassuringly at her. "Yes, you do. James and I, and the Headmaster Dumbledore, are the only ones who will see them. No one else will ever find out what you said."
The girl nodded and wrote her name on the top of the page she had been furiously scribbling on.
"Before you leave," James said, as he walked through the rows collecting the papers from the desks. "We need to know the name of the girl who ran away, the girl who was threatened. Does anyone know her name?"
Two students made eye contact, the girl with a brown ponytail, and a boy sitting beside her. The boy nodded slightly to the girl, as though telling her to go ahead.
The girl swallowed and said, with her voice cracking a little, "Amelia. Amelia Donovan."
"Thank you," Lily said, "You have all been so much help. I'm so sorry that this happened, but we are going to work and find out who is behind this."
"Excuse me," James muttered to Lily and nodded to the door. "Dumbledore."
Lily nodded and continued addressing the young students while James went out to the headmaster. "I hope that we have enough information here to find who did this, so that it won't happen again. Hogwarts really is a safe place. This sort of thing is not taken lightly, and once we find who did it, Headmaster Dumbledore will take actions to correct the problem."
Unsure of what to say next, Lily kept glancing to the door until it finally swung open again. James reentered the room, his face ashen. "I've just spoken to Professor Dumbledore," he said loudly, "he advises you to return to your houses and stay there for the day. You are excused from class until further notice."
Lily glanced at James, but he refused to make eye contact with her. She pursed her lips in annoyance, and watched as the students filed back out of the room, still as silent as they had been when they entered twenty minutes before.
Lily was about to leave when she noticed one little girl who hadn't left yet. "Is there something you want to tell us?" Lily asked kindly, approaching where the girl sat alone at the back of the room.
The girl shook her head, her eyes trained on Lily. She glanced up at James once, and then back to Lily. She took a deep breath, and just when Lily was about to ask her another question, she thrust a piece or parchment at her, and said, "I found this," before she took off for the door.
Lily clutched the parchment dumbly, watching the girl flee the room. James pulled her from her confusion though and urged her to open the parchment.
"No," Lily said. "Not until you tell me what Dumbledore wanted. I want to hear everything."
James sighed and sat down. "They've taken the boy to St. Mungo's. They don't know what happened to him, and there's no way to tell."
"But he's going to be alright." Lily said it as a statement, not really willing to accept anything less than him being alright.
James shrugged. "Maybe he will be if you open the damn parchment."
Lily shot him a look before unfolding the paper. She read the words once, and then once again. The third time it sunk in. The terse message on the parchment seemed to dance and laugh at her, telling her she was never going to be able to stop what happened today from happening again.
James took the parchment from her shaking hands and read it for himself. He exhaled deeply and placed the parchment on the table, where Lily looked down at it again, just to make sure she hadn't imaged it the first time.
There, written is large, scratchy black letters were two words: "You're next."
A/N: Like it? Hate it? Let me know :)
Of course, I'm still working on Moving and Ways to Say No, but I had this idea and I really liked it, so here it is.