Her Father's Daughter
Lily Luna Potter sat in the Great Hall in Hogwarts alongside her fellow first-years. Her brother James made sure to sit as far away as possible from his little sister at the Gryffindor table. Lily's other older brother, Albus, sat with the other Ravenclaws and did his best not to look over at her. Scowling to herself, Lily pondered the fact that all older brothers were embarrassed by their little sisters, as if she had done anything to embarrass them.
With considerable effort Lily tried to listen to Head Mistress McGonagall, but her mind refused to focus. She thought about how her Mum and Dad had told her stories about McGonagall being their professor at school. It certainly seemed likely; Lily thought the Head Mistress looked to be a hundred years old. She had snow white hair pulled back into a severe bun and impeccable posture. Lily felt sure that despite the Head Mistress's age she could just as easily chase Peeve's down the hall as punish the entire school without blinking an eye.
Lily could not enjoy the welcome feast. It was not due to her excitement of being sorted into Gryffindor or seeing Hogwarts for the first time. No, she felt far too nervous about that night. Some students may have been nervous about their first night away from home, but Lily was not even planning on sleeping that night. That night she was going to do something that would surely get her expelled. Not that she entirely wanted to, but James had dared her to sneak into the forbidden forest. Lily could not back down after her brother had challenged her and called her a chicken. As she tried to eat the tasteless sweet meats pie, Lily vainly wished she could have transfigured him into a chicken. When she went to Albus for help, he simply agreed with James. He said that Lily couldn't last five minutes in the forest. Now Lily's only hope was a cloak she found at the bottom of her parent's closet. At first it didn't seem like much, but when she put it on, the cloak made her invisible.
Once the prefects led all the first years to their dormitories, Lily rushed over to her trunk. She sighed with relief as her fingers found the silvery, smooth material. For some reason Lily felt worried that during the boat ride to Hogwarts, the cloak would disappear from her trunk. Even though neither of her brothers knew about the cloak she couldn't stop worrying. She wouldn't have put it pass James to sneak into the girl's dormitory and steal the cloak. It also wouldn't be surprising if he decided to cover Lily with steak sauce before sending her into the forest.
When all of Lily's roommates finally fell asleep it was well after curfew. Quietly Lily grabbed the cloak and crept down to the common room. James sat in one of the armchairs by the fire, pretending to be asleep. Lily knew he was faking since he wasn't snoring. Back home Lily could always hear James's snoring from her room. It reminded her of an elephant sneezing, but James still denied that he snored.
He woke up and gave a fake yawn, muttering,
"Where have you been? I thought you chickened out." Slightly nervous of waking any of the other Gryffindors, Lily whispered,
"I had to wait for the others to fall asleep; I'm not even kind of scared." With a smirk James whispered back,
"Then why are you whispering?" Lily scowled at her older brother, clutching the cloak close to her chest. James looked at the cloak curiously, "What's that?" Happy to know something that her brother didn't Lily gloated,
"None of your business."
James led Lily though the castle, using secret passages to avoid any teacher looking for students out of bed. Lily tried to keep track of it all, but quickly found that she had no idea where they were. She couldn't even tell where the Gryffindor common room was from where she stood. Albus joined them outside of the Great Hall and then they headed outside toward the forbidden forest. When they passed Hagrid's hut Lily wished they were only going to meet the half giant. They could drink tea and eat what her parents had referred to as rock cakes. Sadly James led them right up to the edge of the forest. He looked at Lily and asked,
"Ready to chicken out yet?" Straightening her shoulders, she snapped back,
"I bet I'll make it a whole hour without even trying." Albus and James looked at each other and Albus challenged,
"If you don't we get your next two care packages from Grandma." Grandma Weasley's care packages were legendary, each lovingly filled of mouthwatering treats.
"And if I do?" Demanded Lily, Albus shrugged and replied,
"We'll do your homework for the next month." Considering this, Lily shook her head,
"No, you'll do my homework, but James has to teach me how to play Quidditch." While both of Lily's parents had played Quidditch at school, they had only taught her the basics of flying. Her brothers had outright refused to teach her how to play whenever she was the two of them practicing. James snorted,
"First-years can't even play."
"Dad did." Lily pointed out; her brothers just rolled their eyes and agreed to the deal.
Next came the hard part, actually going into the forbidden forest. It was easy for Lily to stand up to her brothers and say she was brave. Proving it was another matter altogether. Gathering the courage afforded to the daughter of Ginny Weasley and Harry Potter, Lily shook open the invisibility cloak and wrapped it around herself. Her brother's gasped as everything but her head disappeared from view.
"Where'd you get that?" Exclaimed James, slightly worried that his little sister might have outsmarted him. Smiling smugly, Lily responded,
"In Mum and Dad's closet." Albus sniffed disdainfully,
"You stole from your own parents?" Scowling she responded,
"Borrowed, I'll send it back tomorrow." The next day she planned to send out a letter explaining how the cloak had 'accidently' ended up in her trunk.
"Don't do that, you already have it here, so keep it." Argued James, who had already started planning how he would use the invisibility cloak for his own benefit. Albus, who could already see the his brother plotting, cut in,
"How will we know that you actually stayed in the forest for the whole hour?" Lily felt properly offended,
"I am not a coward; I swear I'll stay in the forest for the entire time."
"Why don't you make an Unbreakable Vow?" Demanded James, but Albus look horrified at the idea, Lily rolled her eyes and replied,
"Why don't you two just look for my footprints, that's how you'll know where I am." The ground was rather muddy so even with the invisibility cloak on, Lily's footprints were clearly visible. Neither brother looked particularly pleased with their sister's reasonable idea; Albus felt that she had procrastinated for long enough and snapped,
"Come on Lily, you're stalling, if you don't go in now the bet is off." He paused before adding, "That is if you don't want to just give up now." Lily stuck her tongue out at her brother before marching straight into the forbidden forest.
A few squirrels were scared off by Lily's disembodied head until she remembered to flip up the cloak's cowl. The forest floor was tangled with tree roots and dead leaves. The ground was nearly impossible to see in the almost complete darkness. Lily pulled out her wand and muttered one of the only spells she knew,
"Lumos," It was not a lot of light, just enough to see the ground, although she couldn't see her own feet. As she carefully walked through the forest, the silence seemed to follow Lily like a fog. The quiet felt more menacing than hearing growls and mysterious noises. She constantly thought there were werewolves and ghouls watching her, waiting to attack. This was foolish since she couldn't even see herself.
The only place where Lily knew not to go was travel too deep into the forest. Her Dad used to tell scary stories on Halloween about the giant, flesh-eating spiders that dwelled in the forest. However, anywhere else in the forest could also hold unspeakable monsters. At least as far as Lily knew.
While stumbling along, Lily thought she saw something move. Quickly she said,
"Knox," After her eyes adjusted to the darkness, Lily gasped as she saw an unbelievably tall wolf stand only a few feet away. Its fur was an unusual reddish brown color and it had large brown eyes. Completely frozen with fear, Lily stood still as the enormous wolf sniffed for a moment. It seemed to know that she stood there as it drew closer to her. Its nose was only an inch away from Lily's face when a voice called out,
"Jacob," He swung his head in the direction of the voice, turned back toward Lily for one final sniff and then bound off after the voice.
For a moment Lily remained frozen where she stood until out of instinct she followed after the wolf. Perhaps it was dangerous and rather stupid, but Lily was intrigued by the creature called Jacob. She suspected that he might be a werewolf. As the wolf's bush tail bounced through the woods, Lily kept an arm's length away. That way if it stopped suddenly and she would not run straight into a presumably angry wolf. Gradually the wolf sped up until Lily was sprinting after it. As it left her sight, Lily stopped for a moment to catch her breath. Then she continued in the direction of the wolf's path, still feeling curious.
What Lily walked in onto could only be described as odd. The trees were a little farther apart so she had an unobstructed view of the giant wolf staring at a tall guy and a slim girl with her arms around the teenage boy. The guy looked different, his skin looked as if it had not seen sunlight in years and his brown hair was perfectly spiked, almost unnaturally so. How he appeared to stand completely still seemed weird to Lily, it was as if he was a statue. Neither he nor the girl wore Hogwarts robes, making Lily wonder if they were muggles. The girl was also pale, although not as pale as the boy; she had shoulder length brown hair, and a fairly pretty face. However Lily thought the girl looked somewhat pathetic, she kept putting her arms around the guy and gazing sadly at the giant wolf. Both looked to be around seventeen if not older, perhaps they were Hogwarts alumni?
All Lily knew as that when she saw the girl clinging to the boy, she knew how her brothers would react. If I start acting like that when I'm a seventh year, James and Albus will come back to Hogwarts just to put a bat-bogey hex on me. She took another look at the guy and girl before adding to herself, right now I wouldn't blame them. Of course Lily knew that James had started acting foolish around girls, but still these two seemed a bit more pathetic than him. Maybe people just became more foolish and pitiful around each other as they got older.
As Lily mulled this over, the guy's head snapped up and seemed to look straight at Lily. For a brief moment she thought her invisibility cloak had stopped working. It was like he could see her, but that was impossible. Lily was not the only one to notice the guy's unusual stare, the girl anxiously asked,
"Edward, what is it?" He stared in Lily's direction for a second longer before his golden eyes flickered back towards the girl. In a whisper just loud enough for Lily to hear, Edward replied,
"We have a visitor." With a shock Lily realized that both of them were Americans, and the girl seemed equally surprised although about something different. She gasped,
"Is it Victoria?" The wolf growled and flattened his ears to his skull; apparently Victoria was not a friend.
"No Bella, but I can't tell what it is." While Lily tried to figure out how Edward knew she was there, Jacob stared intently at him. After a moment he shook his head,
"No Jacob, whatever it is, she doesn't mean any harm." He talks to wolves, observed Lily, but Bella clearly couldn't. She looked as confused as Lily felt. Turning his shaggy head towards Lily, the wolf tilted his head as if he was trying to find where she was standing.
At this point Lily felt ready to leave, but then, instantaneously, Edward and Jacob noticed something behind them. Quick as a flash, Edward picked up Bella and ran away with the wolf Jacob racing behind them. Lily saw the red-headed blur of Victoria racing after them. One thing was clear to Lily; Edward and Victoria were not human, no human could run that fast.
Deciding she would not wait around for this Victoria to come and find her, Lily moved on to another part of the forest. As she went further into the forest the trees seemed larger and older. Their ancient limbs creaked ominously in the wind; something about this part of the forest was clearly different. Lily crept along alertly, after her experience with the giant wolf she did not want to be surprised again. That weird pale guy still made her shiver, the way he acted; it was like he could read her mind.
Eventually Lily leaned against a tree to rest wondering if it had been an hour yet. She sat down among the tree's roots for a moment and then a noise from her right caused her to curl up into a ball. Once again Lily's instincts made her momentarily forget that she was invisible. After a few minutes a troop of four men marched past Lily, completely unaware that she was there.
The men were about four feet tall with incredibly curly hair and disproportionally large feet. When Lily noticed their abnormally large feet she had to stifle a giggle. The men heard her and stopped to look around. One of them asked the other,
"Mr. Frodo, you don't reckon it's one of 'them', do you?" The slightly smaller man shook his head.
"No Sam, I don't. They have not snuck up on us yet." Sam still appeared anxious,
"There's a first time for everythin'." He muttered darkly as he nervously looked around. The other two men who had not spoken appeared more interested in eating than finding the source of the noise. Unlike Sam, they did not seem to believe the sound was from something particularly dangerous. Instead they pretended to look around, picked some red berries and ate them. They also joked around, seeing who could eat the most berries. Which meant it was basically Sam searching for the source of the noise.
Lily grew curious about these little men. Especially the one called Mr. Frodo as he kept fretfully playing with the chain around his neck. Sam took him aside,
"Do you need to rest Mr. Frodo? Is that ring suckin' the energy out of ya?" Mr. Frodo patted Sam on the back,
"No, no, I'm fine; I could go for a while longer yet." He assured, but Sam was not convinced.
"Are ya sure? Havin' such a powerful thing around your neck cannot be easy." As Mr. Frodo tried to assure Sam that he felt fine, Lily's mind was whirling. The words "ring" and "powerful" had reminded Lily of a story from her childhood. In the story there had been something called the Resurrection Stone and her Mum told her that the Stone was actually part of a ring.
Lily had to see this ring around Mr. Frodo's neck, just a quick peek. So she quietly stood up and snuck over to Mr. Frodo, doing her best to avoid Sam who was standing quite close to his friend. Slowly she lifted the chain around his neck and a plain gold ring appeared from beneath Mr. Frodo's shirt collar. It was definitely not the ring with the Resurrection Stone. As she tried to carefully set the chain back down, Mr. Frodo seemed to become aware of Lily's presence. He lashed out and accidently pulled the cloak off of Lily. She stood there frozen while the little men panicked at her sudden appearance. Confused and worried that the men were not as harmless as they appeared, Lily grabbed the cloak and hurried away.
Once she ran far enough away, Lily let her breathing return to normal and put the cloak back on. At this point Lily really wished she had a watch. How long had it been, twenty minutes, an hour or two? Perhaps she should start working her way back towards the castle. But where was the castle? Lily looked up at the barely visible stars for assistance, but the North Star could not help her. After all she did not know whether the castle stood north or south of the forest. So Lily did the only logical thing, she turned in the general direction that she had some from. She moved at enough of an angle to hopefully avoid the little men.
When she walked, Lily tried to ignore the tiny thought at the back of her mind. Would her brothers come looking for her after too long? If they did, would she be responsible for getting all three of them lost? For a moment she thought she heard Albus calling her name, he had come for her! Hearing the voice again Lily realized it wasn't Albus, or James. As the voice came closer Lily could finally understand what the boy was saying,
"Annabeth, Annabeth," It seemed like Lily was not the only person lost in the forest that night.
"Come on Annabeth, stop messing around, we have to find that flag before Clarisse figures out that we fooled her." Another American, Lily thought to herself, and then a muffled laugh erupted near her. She jumped back in surprise, and before Lily could regain her composure, a female voice responded,
"The day a daughter of Ares discovers one of my traps is the day Zeus gives Hades a throne on Olympus." Lily tried to understand the comment, but it sounded like nonsense. A tall teenage boy moved towards the voice with a grin on his face.
"So two weeks from never?" Unlike Edward, this boy looked completely normal, except for his clothes. He had slightly long black hair that hung in his sea green eyes. His clothes on the other hand looked like they belonged in another century. He wore armor, a metal breast plate and arm guards that could have been from a Grecian warrior. Underneath the armor he wore a bright orange t-shirt and a necklace with three beads on it.
"Basically, come on Seaweed Brain, I'm sure the flag is over here." The guy looked around, scratched his head and asked,
"Where's over here?"
"Oh, sorry." A blond girl appeared from out of nowhere, Lily had to cover her mouth to stop from screaming. The girl stood two inches taller than Lily with curly blond hair and stormy grey eyes. Annabeth also wore the strange armor and in one hand she held a dagger. In the other was, of all things, a Yankee's baseball cap.
With her hat, Annabeth directed the boy towards the flag. He moved through the trees and tried to see where it was. Lily felt curious so she tried to sneak up behind the boy to look over his shoulder. But after one step a twig snapped under her foot. The two teenagers swung around, Annabeth with her dagger at the ready while the boy reached for his back pocket. Lily came within two inches of being hit by the girl's sharp dagger.
"Is it Clarisse?" He wondered, but the girl shook her head.
"No way," A distant cry sounded and three warriors charged into view wearing similar armor and helmets with red plumes on their heads. Even from a distance Lily could see the swords gleaming in the moonlight.
"I'll take the big one." Yelled Annabeth, the guy pulled a pen out of his back pocket and uncapped it. The pen morphed into a gold sword, and Lily stared at the sword in wonder. Had he just performed a transfiguration? But he didn't have a wand and he never said a word. The boy looked only two years older than Lily, it would be impossible for his magic to be so advanced. Responding to his friend, the boy muttered,
"Sure, yeah, piece of cake, I'll just take on the other two, no problem." Annabeth flashed him a smile,
"Tell you what Percy; if you beat your guys first I'll let you claim the flag."
"Let me?" Challenged Percy, and before Annabeth could respond the red warriors attacked.
While swords clanked and scraped across armor, Lily decided to leave. She did not want to risk being discovered by a group of sword yielding Americans. Judging from their conversations about the Greek gods, they were insane sword yielding Americans. But they must have had some magic, after all normal pens don't morph into swords. Lily considered this as she walked away.
Lily was no closer to finding her way out of the forest. The centaurs had helped her parents in the past; maybe they would lead her back to the castle. So Lily set out with a new purpose, although her destination still remained hazy. Around this time she considered how someone ought to map out the forbidden forest. But then again the forest was forbidden, a map would only encourage students to break the rules. However from her visit, Lily had already seen a large number of rule breakers.
After wondering awhile, Lily reached an area of the forest where fall seemed to begin taking its hold on the forest. Leaves were a colorful variety of oranges, yellows and red while mostly brown leaves crunched underfoot. After crunching though the forest for a while, Lily thought she was alone until she stepped on someone.
"Ow," Came a voice from the ground, Lily took a step back to see what it was. When she looked closely she found two men crouching in the brush. They were barely discernible due their green and grey cloaks that helped them melt into the forest floor. The cloaks almost acted like invisibility cloaks.
"Something stepped on me Halt." The voice came again, the voice of a young man. A gravelly voice of an older man replied,
"Are you sure it wasn't just a muscle cramp?"
"No, I'm sure it was a foot." Halt sighed,
"Should I ask how you know what it's like to be stepped on?" When the young voice did not respond, he added, "As you can tell there is no one around, so how do you propose you were stepped on Will?"
"You saw those leaves move and the crunch they made, someone has to be here." Will insisted,
"And yet no one's here." Halt pointed out dryly, but Will could not help arguing,
"Perhaps Rangers are not the only ones who can make themselves invisible." The older Ranger sniffed,
"What you are suggesting is impossible." Lily could not help smiling, if only Halt knew she was standing there completely invisible. Will did not respond to the man who was clearly his mentor.
A few minutes passed, Lily was amazed how quiet and still the two Rangers could be. If she didn't know any better she would say that they had both fallen asleep. Gradually a sound began to approach the silent group, two horses galloping towards them. As two men on horseback came into view, the Rangers moved quickly. Two bows appeared out of nowhere, they were drawn and fired, causing two horses to rear up and gallop away. Their riders lay in a heap on the ground. The Rangers stood up, revealing that they were only a few inches taller than Lily.
"Well that takes care of the scouting party." Said Will as he stretched, Lily could now see how he was only a few years older than her. Both Rangers had the cowls pulled up on their cloaks so she could not see their faces.
"Yes now we just have to travel five hundred leagues back to Duncan's castle to warn him about the impending attack, our job is practically done." Halt replied dryly, but despite his mentor's sarcastic response, Will smiled.
"At least it's better than fighting the army ourselves." The older Ranger looked at his apprentice for a moment before letting out a sharp whistle. Two shaggy ponies appeared; the Ranger mounted them and promptly raced off in the direction of the North Star.
Lily watched the surprisingly fast ponies head north and realized that Hogwarts probably lay in the opposite direction of the other castle. With growing confidence, Lily headed south, a smile slowly growing on her face as the trees thinned. Soon she could see the moon and then through the trees the castle appeared in the distance.
Excitedly running out of the forest, Lily found her brothers standing exactly where she left them. Lily pulled off the cloak, her cheeks flushed with excitement.
"You two will never believe what just happened, I-"
"Where've you been?" Demanded James, and Albus appeared equally anxious and impatient.
"Where do you think?" Replied Lily, angry that her brothers would not listen to her story,
"It's been two hours!" Yelled James, Lily could not tell whether he had been worried about her or simply bored. Maybe he had felt a little of both. Lily grinned broadly as realized what her brother had said,
"Then I win the bet!" She exclaimed, ready to celebrate. Unfortunately when Lily had been exiting the forest she had not noticed someone walking down from the castle.
Professor Longbottom stepped forward,
"Yes, you've all won; you've won three weeks of detention," The Potters all groaned, "each." Neville Longbottom added, leading to another round of groans.
"Uncle Neville," Began Lily, who, though not related by blood, had always called Professor Longbottom uncle.
"Here I am your teacher Ms. Potter; you will call me Professor or Sir."
"I'm sorry Sir, but-" Neville shook his head, clearly he was used to dealing with the Potter children.
"No 'buts' Ms. Potter, you should be happy that I'm not writing to your parents, or taking any points away from either of your houses." Lily knew she was beaten; she shut her mouth and bowed her head.
As Professor Longbottom marched the Potter children back to the castle, he put his hand on Lily's shoulder.
"Are you all right?" His eyes were full of concern, Uncle Neville was back.
"Yeah," A far off look entered Neville's eyes,
"I had to go into the forest during my first-year; it was terrifying to see it at night with all those mysterious beasts. You never knew what would creep out of the shadows." Lily gave Neville a warm smile,
"I thought it was brilliant." He studied her for a moment and then with a half-smile said,
"You are truly your father's daughter." Smiling Lily replied,
"Yes, I really am."