Chapter Two
The next day she woke up and was downstairs in the common room before she remembered that she hadn't done the Transfiguration homework.
"Bullocks!" She said loudly.
"What is it?" Sirius said, coming up behind her.
"I forgot to do McGonagall's homework!" She said, panicking.
"Me too. Don't worry it's easy," he said, pulling out Standard Spells Grade 7. "We only had to review human Switching Spells." Relieved, she pulled out her wand. They had done those last year. She quickly skimmed over the directions in the book.
"Ok, now I just need someone to practice on," she said, glancing around.
"I'll do it on you, and you do it on me." Sirius suggested, snapping the book shut.
"Ok, noses to buttons on three. One, two, three." She said, as both waved their wands. Right then, James walked up to them.
"Hmm, I think that's a good look for you, Krys," he said, observing the buttons that had replaced their noses.
"Hey, you hab behher be 'ice hoo me," she said, sounding like she had a very bad head cold. Both she and Sirius waved their wand, and their noses were instantly restored.
"Alright, I know, I owe you for last night. By the way, did Lily say anything about me?" James asked eagerly.
"Even if she did, I wouldn't tell you," she said mischievously. James sighed and turned to star at the back of Lily's head. Right then, as if sensing his eyes, Lily turned and, to James's amazement, smiled at him. As she turned back to her conversation, James turned to Krys and Sirius, ecstatic.
"Did you see that? She smiled at me!" He said, excitedly.
"Chill, mate," Sirius said laying a calming hand on his friend.
"I'm gonna go for it," said James, turning in Lily's direction as she moved towards the portrait hole. "Hey Ev-, er, Lily! Wait up!" He called. Lily turned, and with an amused expression, waited for him to catch up. Together, they walked down to breakfast.
"Well, will you look at that?" Sirius said, wonderingly, "That must have been some magic he worked last night."
"No pun intended?" Krys said, laughing.
"No pun intended," he said, smiling and putting his arm around her, "Come on, we're late for breakfast." They waved to Remus who was waiting for Samantha. Once they reached their table in the Great Hall, Krys took out her Potions essay and was rereading it when Pettigrew sat down beside Sirius.
"Hey! Hey Sirius. Did ya hear? The last Hogsmeade trip of the term is in two weeks." Peter said in that twitchy way of his, "And, and, you said you that you wanted to know so you could…"
"Yes, yes, Wormtail, thank you," Sirius interrupted. Out of the corner of his mouth he muttered, "Wormtail, you're such an idiot, it's a SURPRISE."
"Oh, oh, sorry Sirius. I'm, I'm really sssorry," Wormtail stuttered.
"It's ok, I know you can't help being idiot," Sirius said, patting his friend affectionately on the back. Then, seeing the quizzical look on Krys's face, said, "Peter just wanted to remind me to do my Christmas shopping. You know Peter, always trying to help his friends."
"Ok…" she said with a disbelieving expression on her face. She went back to her essay, wondering what Sirius was up to. Well, she didn't have time to worry about it, they were going to be late for Potions if they didn't hurry up. She packed up her essay and finished her tea.
"Ok, let's go," she said, standing up. They all made their way to the dungeons, but for some reason Lily was hanging at the back of the group. Krys dropped back to talk to her.
"What's wrong, Lils?" Krys asked.
"I just don't want to run into Slughorn," Lily said, "I just know that he's going to invite me to his Christmas Party."
"Well, that can't be that bad! I'm going to be there!" Krys said.
"Yeah, but you'll have Sirius. I'll just be the odd one out," Lily complained.
"Well, you could always invite someone, like James," Krys said mischieviously.
"Hmm…I dunno about that," Lily said, "but, hopefully I won't have to go at all." They slipped into class as inconspicuously as possible and sat down next to Tiffany and Alice.
"Good morning class. I trust everyone finished their essays. Turn them in up here, and please stay at the front of the class, I will be splitting you into pairs for today's lesson," Professor Slughorn said as he entered the classroom. Krys fished her essay out of her bag and made her way to the front of the class with everyone else. She was praying that she wouldn't be paired with a Slytherin, but, knowing her luck, she would be stuck with Malfoy. Much to her disappointment, Slughorn went through the line of students pairing them with different Houses. He was big on interHouse relations. And, since the advanced Potions class was a mixture of all the Houses, there was always plenty of opportunity for mingling. As he paired Lily with Narcissa Black, Sirius's cousin whom he refused to acknowledge any connection to, Slughorn asked Lily if she would be attending his Christmas party.
"Er…um...sure sir, I'll be there," she said, reluctantly.
"Excellent. It's going to be a little fancier this year. Oh, and don't forget to bring a date," Slughorn said, happily. Krys laughed to herself. Now Lily would have to ask James! But, she stoped laughing soon when Slughorn paired her with Malfoy. Her smile quickly turned to a frown, and she saw Sirius look disbelievingly at Slughorn and then at Malfoy with loathing. Malfoy smirked and picked up his things. As Krys moved her things, she passed Sirius.
"Don't worry," she said, trying to calm him down.
"I don't trust him," he growled, sitting at the table right next to her. He was paired with Goyle, one of Malfoy's cronies and an imbecile.
"It's just a Potions lesson. What can he do?" she replied, soothingly. She tried to appear relaxed, but inside she was recoiling at the thought of spending an extended period of time with Malfoy that close by.
"Today you will be concocting a very mild Seduction Potion. Now this potion is very tricky, which is why I have left it until now. Mind you, I still want you to make it very mild. You will all have to test your own potions and adding this on top of your hormones may wreck havoc. The ingredients you need are in the store cabinet. You have until the end of the period. Begin." Slughorn said, waving his arms dramatically. Krys turned to face a smirking Malfoy.
"Ok, well, just let me do most of the work. I don't want the potion jeopardized," she said, trying not to look at him.
"Whatever you say, Kry…" he started.
"And call me Meadows," she interrupted, "I don't feel we're close enough to be on a first name basis." She sent him to get the ingredients and started the fire under the cauldron. She scanned the instruction. This was going to be tricky. But, potions dealing with love or attraction were always tricky. Malfoy returned with the ingredients, and she quickly set about ordering him around. She made him measure slice, ground, or squeeze the ingredients, depending on what was appropriate. As she placed and stirred the ingredients in the cauldron, she talked to herself, reminding herself of the uses of the different items. After almost an hour of careful stirring and measuring, she asked Malfoy to hand her a tenth of an ounce of the final and most crucial ingredient, crushed unicorn tail. He handed it to her, heaped on a small silver spoon. She thought that it looked like a little too much, but she shrugged and dumped it in, just as Slughorn's timer went off. She stirred it clockwise three times and extinguished the fire.
"Alright, time's up. Now it's time to test the potion. First, everyone please turn in their labeled potion samples," Slughorn paused as everyone scrambled to turn theirs in, "this potion works particularly well on females, so I would like them to be the testers. If you are in a group of two girls, kindly find a group of two boys whose potion you can test." Krys saw Lily move over to Sirius's table.
"Now, on the count of three. One, two, three."
Krys lifted her glass and downed it in one gulp. It was actually pretty good. It had a spicy cinnamon taste. She felt a fire burn through her. She shook out her hair and turned to gaze at Sirius from under her eyelashes. She pouted her lips and beckoned to him. With an apprehensive look on his face, Sirius approached her. She pulled him closer to her and kissed him, right there in the middle of class. While most of the other girls were simply fluffing their hair and giving the boys inviting looks, she stood there kissing her boyfriend. She wasn't the only one acting odd, though. While Malfoy watched, horrified as his plan backfired, Narcissa approached him coyly. Before he knew it, she had her arms wrapped around him. It turns out that Potions wasn't one of Narcissa's best subjects. It wasn't one of Goyle's either, though nothing was really a good subject for him. Lily, having sampled his potion, had made her way to James. She had her arms around his neck and was about to kiss him when Slughorn got to her with the antidote. One squirt and she was back to normal. When Krys regained her senses, she looked around and saw a very confused Lily in very happy James's arms. Lily blushed and returned to her table. It was then that Krys turned to her situation. She quickly realized what had happened. Turning to Malfoy, livid, she accused him.
"You! You gave me too much unicorn tail, didn't you! Admit it! I know you did! Now I'm going to get a bad grade, and it's all your fault!" She couldn't believe what the creep had done! He probably thought she would go for him. Oh gross! As if!
"There, there, Ms. Meadows. Calm down," Slughorn soothed, "You will not be receiving lower marks because of Mr. Malfoy's heavy handedness."
"Thank you very much, Professor," said a slightly calmer Krys. She had always been one of Slughorn's favorites. She first got into the Slug Club because the Meadows were a prominent pureblood family, and her father was Head of the Department of International Magical Relations. Well, it was her adopted father, but it still counted. Krys had been adopted by the Meadows when she was extremely young. No one knew who her real parents were or if she was really a pureblood witch. Her parents didn't care, they never believed in all that tainted blood nonsense. They preferred to associate themselves with other families, like the Potters, that felt the same way. She had known James since they were kids.
"Hey, Krys, come on," James said, breaking her reverie, "time for Transfiguration. We better hurry, you know how McGonagall is about being late." With that, all of them rushed out of the dungeons.
"Hey Lils! Wait up!" Krys called. Lily seemed to know what was coming next. She blushed and slowed reluctantly.
"So, I thought you didn't like James?" Krys said, grinning.
"Yeah, well, um, I don't." Lily began.
"Don't even try to deny it!" Krys said, "The potion doesn't lie!"
"I didn't even think I liked him!"
"Well, now that you know that you do, you have to ask him to Slughorn's party!"
"We'll see," Lily said smiling. It was apparent that she couldn't ask anyone else after that incident. They entered the Transfiguration classroom and found their normal seats. Luckily Malfoy wasn't in this class, he hadn't made it into McGonagall's N.E.W.T. class. The period passed quickly. They were just reviewing previous years in preparation for their N.E.W.T.s. Bored, Krys turned to Lily to ask about her plans for the Christmas Holidays.
"So, what are you doing over the holidays?" she asked.
"You mean, what are we doing over the holidays, right?" Lily asked back.
"We?" Krys said, confused.
"Yeah, didn't you get a letter from your parents?" Lily asked. Krys dove into her bag and pulled out a very crumpled piece of parchment.
"Well I got this at breakfast, but I haven't had a chance to read it yet." She confessed, trying to smooth the note out.
"Figures." Lily said, smiling and shaking her head, "Well, it says that your parents are going to Africa because your dad has some conference he had to go to. So, instead of joining them, you're coming to stay with me!"
"Really?!" Krys said, excitedly. She hated going to her dad's conferences. They were always so boring. Staying with Lily would be so exciting! She had never stayed in a Muggle house before. Of course, she had been to Lily's house, but never to stay.
"Yeah! We're going to have so much fun!" Lily said, just as excited. They tried to focus on the lesson, but, thankfully, class ended shortly after. On the way to lunch, Krys filled Sirius in on the good news.
"Cool, maybe me and James will come visit," he said. She knew that he and James spent all their holidays together since Sirius had run away from home.
"You better come visit!" She said, "and you don't have an excuse since you both have passed your Apparition test."
"Alright, I know. I promise I'll come." He said, putting his arm around her. As they walked through the halls, Krys noticed tell tale signs of Christmas. Holly bedecked the staircases, tinsel crowned the suits of armor, and, to her disappointment, mistletoe hung in the hallways.
"Oh, no!" she groaned.
"What's wrong?" Sirius asked, looking concerned. She looked up and pointed, they were standing directly beneath a bunch of mistletoe. After kissing her, Sirius laughed as he remembered last year. Krys and Lily had to run through the halls during class to avoid the guys trying to catch them under the mistletoe. He had managed to snag a kiss from Krys last year by catching her under the mistletoe outside the Gryffindor tower. That was before they were dating so she had been reluctant. Krys heard another groan. Lily had just noticed the mistletoe as well.
"Well, you don't need to worry this year," Sirius said, "James and I will take care of you two."
"What do you mean?" Lily asked.
"Well, there's more than one way to get to class, if you know what I mean." James said, mischievously, "How do you think we avoided being ambushed in the halls last year?"
"I didn't think you tried to avoid it at all." Krys joked.
"Well, after a while it got annoying." Sirius said. With that, they all entered the Great Hall and sat down to lunch.
"Hey, where'd Remus go?" Krys said, looking around for their friend. Just then Remus walked in with Samantha by his side.
"He must have waited for Samantha after class." Lily said. They passed lunch by watching Remus and Samantha. Sirius and James couldn't stop laughing. After lunch, they all went to class and, before they knew it, they were sitting in the common room waiting for dinner. Krys decided to finally catch up on her homework. She was taking a break when she noticed Sirius, Lily, Alice, and James sitting in the corner whispering.
"Hmm," she murmured, frowning, "I wonder what they're up to." She felt a little lonely, sitting at her table, books spread out in front of her. But, before she could feel too sorry for herself, Remus came and sat down in the chair next to her.
"Hey you." She said with a big smile, thankful for the company.
"Hey," he said in his quiet, peaceful manner, "have time to talk?"
"Yeah, of course. You know I always have time for you!"
"You look a little…busy" he said, surveying the massive amounts of books laid out in front of her.
"Ha…yeah…it's cool. I didn't really feel like doing this anyways. I can finish it later." She said, closing and stacking the books to focus on him. "What's going on with you?"
"Well.." he started hesitantly, "it's about Samantha."
"The lovely Ms. Pewter? I surmised as much." she said, smiling knowingly as he broke into a grin and looked down bashfully, "How's that going? What's happened?"
He proceeded to tell her about earlier that afternoon, the two of them had taken a walk around the school grounds. They had held hands as the sun set.
"Aw! Remus! That's so cute! It sounds like you two are really hitting it off." She said, extremely happy for him. He was such a great guy, it was about time he found someone to make him happy.
"Yeah," he said, looking pretty pleased, "I think I like her a lot."
"Well, will darling Sam be joining us for dinner?" she asked, fairly certain that she already knew the answer.
"Definitely" he said, the expected reply. And, before Lupin could talk to Krys about a completely unrelated subject he had been keen to discuss, they were interrupted by Lily casually coming to call them off to dinner.
"Oh, all done with your secret meeting then?" Krys said, a bit harsher than she had intended. Lupin's eyebrows raised a fraction at her tone, and his mouth twitched as he tried not to smile at her annoyance.
"I don't know what you're talking about." Lily replied breezily.
"Oh, alright then," Krys said, feeling bad about her previous statement, "let me just put these books back upstairs." But, while she told herself it was nothing, she still felt that something was going on when she returned to the Common Room to see everyone talking excitedly in the corner, only to stop upon her approach.
"Finally!" James said with mock frustration. She playfully punched him in the arm as the while gang climbed out of the portrait hole and proceeded to dinner.
A/N: So, this is my very first fanfic, as you can probably tell. Pretty, pretty please R&R!! Oh, and I know it's starting off a little slowly, but hang in there! I'll try to get to the good stuff soon!!
