A Matter of Timing
Chapter Four
Of Students and Nightmares
"Not eating, are you?" Uriah asked at her left. "You feeling alright?"
"If I eat I might vomit," Lily muttered, and then cringed. She hadn't meant to say that aloud. She turned to him and pasted on a smile she hoped was convincing. "I'm fine, really. Just a bit of nerves. It'll pass soon enough."
Uriah nodded and dug back into his potatoes. Lily looked out toward the sea of students once more and leaned back in her chair.
Sitting at one of the long House tables in the Great Hall at dinnertime had long lost its splendor for Lily, but it had been a real shock when she'd come out of the staff room and stood behind the raised table. She hadn't expected herself to feel overwhelmed by the size of the hall.
She hadn't expected to feel intimidated by the students, either. From this distance all she could distinguish were hands and heads moving on either side of the tables, calling to mind a many-legged creature on its back and writhing about rather than a mass of children.
At first, anyhow.
Once the novelty of sitting behind the staff table had passed, she'd begun to realise something was missing. A sense of wrongness had crept in, slowly but surely putting her on edge. That was when she'd noticed the tables were shorter than they'd been back when Lily was a student.
"I'm afraid we've cut back on our staff in recent years," McGonagall had said that first night.
Fewer staff, because there were fewer students.
She'd known this. Lily had known this, because her work with Dagley meant visiting the parents of Muggle-born students and convincing them of the safety of Hogwarts. Not every parent could be convinced. And she'd heard her older coworkers mention friends who had taken their children out of school, sometimes fleeing the country.
This amount…this absence in the Great Hall was far more than she'd imagined, or had allowed herself to imagine.
The tables were shorter. That was why the room seemed larger. And that was why Lily felt sick.
"Awful," she muttered to herself.
"What's that?" asked Uriah.
Lily pursed her lips, hesitating for a long moment before asking, "Is Yamuna Prep the only school for magic in India?"
"Hmm?" his eyebrows went up. "No, it's one of four."
That made sense—India was much larger and much more populous than the United Kingdom.
She cleared her throat. "How many students does it hold?"
Uriah put down his knife and fork and gave the question some serious thought. "Probably eight hundred," he said at last. "No—nine hundred, I think? We didn't all have meals together like this."
"You know, Hogwarts is the only wizarding school in the UK. How many students would you say are out there…three hundred, perhaps?"
"Should there be more?"
Lily nodded. "Three times as many. At least there were, when I was a student. But that was eight years ago. Obviously, things have changed."
"Ah…" Uriah rubbed his jaw. He seemed at a loss for how to respond and kept glancing out at the students, then back at her.
What was the point, Lily wondered bitterly, of all those hours at the Ministry fighting Followers and monsters and keeping everything hushed up from the Muggles, if they couldn't even keep children alive? Not all of the absence in the Great Hall could be chalked up to students being kept home or fleeing the country, after all. What good was any of it?
What had she, Lily Evans, done in the past four years that had mattered?
"I suppose," Uriah said, puncturing her brooding with his voice like a needle in a balloon, "we do the best we can, here, with what we have. They're all still here"—he swept an arm to indicate the students—"so that's who we'll pay attention to."
"Mm."
"Oy, you," he said, and elbowed her in the ribs. "At least eat something before it all goes away. You won't want to look like a ghost when Dumbledore introduces you to the students."
After a moment, she let her shoulders drop—she hadn't even noticed how tensed up she'd been—and pulled some roast chicken and potatoes onto her plate.
It all tasted good, as she knew it would, but she ate with a rote dispassion, biting and chewing and swallowing because she ought to and not because she was enjoying it. But Uriah didn't say another word about food until she'd cleared her plate and he suggested to her a bread roll to sop up the juices.
When she sat back, her stomach full and her plate practically shining, Lily had to admit to herself that she felt the tiniest bit better.
Only a minute later the tableware vanished.
Dumbledore rose from his seat and raised his hand, and the near-deafening roar of chatter trickled off into a hushed whisper in mere seconds.
"Welcome back," he said into the waiting silence. "As always, Hogwarts is here to welcome you home. For those who have not returned, we hope for their safety."
When Lily was a student there had been whispers of disappearances here and there, but it hadn't once affected anyone she knew. She tried to imagine going back to school for a new semester and wondering how many of her classmates would be returning with her.
"I've a few announcements," Dumbledore went on. "First, after review we have decided to reopen Hogsmeade visits for third years and above—"
A loud cheering erupted from all four tables at that, and it took nearly a minute for the noise to die down enough for Dumbledore to continue speaking.
"Second, on a less pleasant note, after this afternoon's…shenanigans, any student bewitching the suits of armour in the corridors will be subject to a detention of Mr Filch's choosing."
The Gryffindor table had a small rippling murmur at that.
"And lastly, you may have noticed that Professor Flitwick is not here," Dumbledore said. Lily looked to him and saw his eyes were twinkling. "I say 'may' because he is sometimes difficult to spot."
Even Lily managed a chuckle at that.
"None of you need worry—for the next year, Professor Flitwick will be on sabbatical in Peru and therefore will be unavailable to teach Charms here at Hogwarts. Let's all wish him the best during his travels since he is extremely happy to be taking this long-overdue vacation. In his stead, allow me to introduce Professor Lily Evans, who has graciously agreed to fill in on short notice."
All eyes snapped to Lily at once and she gave an awkward, tight-lipped smile. She was saved from the scrutiny, however, when the silence was cut by two loud thunks from the Gryffindor table, and everyone's heads swiveled. She couldn't help but look over as well.
From what Lily could gather, two goblets full of pumpkin juice had been knocked over and were spilling all over the table, though wands were out and drying up the mess. The cause of it had been Annie Miyamura, who must have bumped them in surprise when she heard Lily's name. The poor girl's face was a brilliant, burning red thanks to all the stares she was receiving.
Lily waved at Annie, who could only stare at her hands as she sank lower in her seat.
"You know her?" Uriah murmured in her ear.
"We met over break," she whispered.
"Poor thing," he said. "She looks like she wants to vanish."
"Oh, she'll be fine," said Lily. "She's stronger than she looks."
As she'd done many times over the last few days, Lily recalled the determined look in Annie Miyamura's eyes when Lily had suggested getting her memory wiped.
"Her? But she's so quiet in my class."
"Probably because she's busy learning."
Uriah looked over at Annie, who had all but slipped under the table at this point, and then back at Lily. "I'll give you a month to lose that sort of thinking. At most."
Dumbledore cleared his throat and Annie was spared further embarrassment.
"I ask that you treat Professor Evans with the respect she deserves," he said, as if nothing had happened. "Good night to all of you."
It took a moment for the students to realise they'd been dismissed, and then there was a great scraping of bench legs on stone as everyone stood up at once. Lily winced at the noise.
"Nightcap?" suggested Uriah.
"Mm," she said, shaking her head. "I ought to go to sleep. Important day tomorrow."
He stood and stretched his arms out, yawning softly. "Well, your loss. I'll be in the staff room if you change your mind."
"Thanks," said Lily. "Some other night, perhaps."
"Alright, then," he said. "Remember, if you've any questions you can come to me for them. I promise I won't laugh. Much."
She managed to produce a chuckle as he patted her shoulder and went back into the staff room behind them.
The point, she grasped abruptly, the point of everything she'd done—perhaps not everything, but enough of it—was that she'd done something. Annie Miyamura was still alive, after all. At least she'd done that. If Lily accomplished nothing else of significance in her life, at least she had done one good thing.
She got up and followed Uriah through the staff room door.
Just as Lily was getting into bed, she heard a light rap on her window. She paused, dropping the sheets from her hand and tucking her hair behind her ear, checking to see if she'd imagined the sound or not.
She hadn't. The tapping sounded behind the window curtains and Lily crossed the room to open them.
"Angelia!" she said happily as her owl fluttered up and down outside. Lily quickly cranked open the window pane and stood back to let Angelia into the room, then closed it again to keep the warmth inside. "Good grief, it's cold!"
Lily scrambled to her trunk and pulled out the bird cage she hadn't yet unpacked. She reached blindly for her wand before realising she'd left it on her nightstand, and scrambled over to pick it up. With a flick of her wand the cage grew three sizes. Angelia flew straight into it and alighted on the perch, cooing pleasantly and preening her feathers.
Lily's chest tightened with a familiar awfulness.
"No letter from Petunia, then," she murmured, more to herself than the bird. "Well. That's to be expected."
And yet...and yet she was still stung, still hurt all over again without any rational explanation. Petunia had never replied to any of her letters sent by owl (not that there had been many, after the first year at Hogwarts) and had made her disdain of owls quite clear time and time again. Lily's first owl Bartholomew had been unceremoniously thrown out of the house in Lily's fifth year during her visit over Christmas holiday. Feathers strewn everywhere, high-pitched screeching from both her sister and the bird—it had been a nightmare and a half.
At least Petunia had sent her a wedding invitation, and Lily could only take that as an olive branch. That was something, after all.
"You could roost in the Owlery if you like," Lily suggested as she tugged a pouch of owl pellets from her trunk. "I think you'd like it. Birds of a feather, you know." She chuckled at her weak pun. "Here you are."
Angelia took her owl pellets gently, doing her best not to peck Lily's hand with her beak. She was an unusually gentle bird, constantly going out of her way to keep Lily from getting hurt. Lily could honestly say Angelia was one of only a few beings she could count on to behave in such a manner.
Her mouth twisted as she remembered the others she'd thought of in the same manner before forcing herself to ignore those thoughts. She wasn't quite ready to dwell on Cassie and the twins just yet.
"There, darling," she said to Angelia once she'd finished eating from Lily's hand. She stroked her owl's head and Angelia's eyes closed in contentment. "Beautiful girl."
And then she heard another knock.
"Did you bring a friend?" Lily teased her owl before she heard the knock again and realised it was on her door, not the window.
That was strange. Whoever it was had walked right through her office to reach her chambers—and Lily was almost certain she'd locked up her office for the night. She held her wand to her side as she moved to the door, and she pulled it open like ripping off a plaster.
"Profes—ah, er, Minerva," Lily stammered in surprise. "Good evening."
"I hope I didn't wake you," McGonagall said, eyeing Lily's nightgown and braided hair.
"No," said Lily. "No, I wasn't even in bed yet. Is something the matter?"
"Not particularly, but I'm afraid I let something fall through the cracks." On any other person, Lily might have considered McGonagall's expression to be one of nervousness. "Could we perhaps speak in your office?"
Lily nodded. "Of course. Let me put on a robe, and…would you like some tea?"
Her mouth thinned a little. "No, thank you. This won't take long."
"Alright," she said. "I'll be just a moment."
Lily shut the door slowly, hoping to not appear rude. A light case of nerves came over her, an irrational emotion brought on by nights at Hogwarts interrupted by her irate Head of House for any number of things. It was a silly reaction. McGonagall wasn't here to scold Lily, not when Lily was completely free of wrongdoing.
She hurried over to her bathroom door to throw on her bathrobe, pulling it close around herself. It didn't feel like enough clothing to wear for a meeting with McGonagall, especially since the woman still had her full set of robes on and looked as sharp as she'd been since morning, but Lily squared her shoulders and went back to her door.
"Sorry for the wait," she said as she walked down the stairs.
McGonagall was already seated in the plush chair on the students' side of the desk, the chair closer to the hallway door. She had positioned it so the back was to the door and she was facing Lily. Her ankles crossed under her robes and she appeared deep in thought, brought out of it as she heard Lily speak.
Rather than sit her chair behind the desk, Lily chose the chair opposite McGonagall and sat down a bit stiffly.
After a long moment of silence, she prompted, "What is it you wanted to talk to me about?"
"Yes. That." McGonagall tapped her left pointer finger on the arm of the chair with a slow, steady rhythm. "As you know, we appoint Prefects for a number of reasons, academic success being only one of many. In selecting Prefects we look for…leadership attributes and someone who will not abuse their power over other students."
"I know," said Lily in confusion.
"And you're also aware that, while Professor Dumbledore believes in a certain amount of exposure for children—letting them experience unpleasantness from time to time helps them learn and grow into adults—he holds their safety as his highest priority."
She didn't say anything, just nodded.
McGonagall hesitated before continuing. "I hope you understand that if I ever thought Albus might be taking a risk with our students, I would oppose him. My students are my highest priority as well, you see." She smiled briefly—tightly—at Lily. "So I hope you won't be upset when I tell you this."
"Minerva, please," Lily said, "whatever it is, I can't believe it will be so terrible as to make me doubt you."
"That all depends on your perspective," she said. "What I'm trying to tell you is that for the last five and a half years, we've had a werewolf among our students."
Lily's breath came out of her in a forced exhale as her chest tightened painfully.
"A what?"
"A werewolf."
McGonagall's eyes were focused behind her spectacles, a sharp glint that Lily stared into numbly.
"A werewolf," Lily repeated. Her thoughts went into loops and whirls as she struggled to digest this tiny, terrifying sentence. And then she sat straight up. "A werewolf?"
"He's a good boy," McGonagall said immediately. "A kind boy. He's the Prefect for Gryffindor in sixth year. Outside of the full moon he wouldn't hurt anyone, and we've taken all the precautions—"
"A werewolf in the school? Are you mad?"
"Not at all."
Lily reached up to run her fingers through her hair and winced—she'd forgotten about her braid.
"Merlin…" she thought on that frantically. "Was he turned as a student? I mean, was he a student here when it happened? I haven't heard of any cases of teenagers in a werewolf attack—"
"It happened before he came to the school," McGonagall said. "Years before he was a student."
Years?
"Good Lord," she managed through her shock. He must have been so young… Against her better nature, Lily added in a rush, "It's safe to have him here? You're certain it's safe?"
McGonagall might as well have Vanished her lips with how thin they'd become, pressed together as they were. "I assured you, did I not, that I would not let any harm come to my students. Certainly not from a werewolf attack, and certainly not from anything else."
Lily winced.
"I just can't imagine anywhere in the castle that would be safe enough," she said to clear the air.
"He doesn't spend the full moon in the castle," said McGonagall. "That new willow on the grounds holds a secret passageway into Hogsmeade."
"The tree the students call the Whomping Willow?"
Lily had heard Egan MacMillan call it that, referring to an old game the school had outlawed in his first year where the students would try to see how close they could get to touch it before the monstrosity swung at them. She'd wondered at the addition of such a dangerous tree on the grounds, but if it was to hide the entrance of a werewolf's lair then she could almost see the appeal.
Almost.
"Indeed," McGonagall said. "You remember the abandoned Holloway house on the outskirts of town? Albus bought it and turned the house into a safe room for Remus to use on full moons. His transformations are…painful, and the villagers have become so frightened by the sounds that they've taken to calling it the Shrieking Shack. They say it's haunted with terrible spirits and have fenced off the property."
"Clever," said Lily. She certainly saw the wisdom in buying the Holloway house—the Holloways had reportedly been an unpleasant lot and no one had taken much interest in the land they'd left behind.
Even cleverer was letting the Hogsmeade villagers invent and feed a rumour of a haunting. Muggle teenagers might raid a haunted building, but anyone in the wizarding world with half a brain or less knew ghosts were a nasty business when violent and wouldn't go near the place. And even if they did, she couldn't think of anyone brave enough to approach a haunted house on a full moon.
A lot of thought had been put into this, then. She couldn't argue that, but she still had some concerns.
"The parents, though," she began, and then backpedaled. "The parents of the other students probably object to their children attending school with a werewolf, don't they?"
"I'm certain they would, if they knew," McGonagall said. Lily detected a note of bitterness in her voice. "So far, we've kept it a secret among the students. Only the staff know, and we've all agreed to keep it amongst ourselves. I daresay the poor boy has gotten far too used to people knocking him down. We decided…well, he's had enough trouble."
"You said his name is Remus?"
"Remus Lupin."
"And he's a sixth year."
McGonagall leaned forward slightly. "I can vouch for his character, if you like. He's a good boy who works hard and doesn't complain. He's kind."
"You've said all that," Lily murmured.
"I want to be sure," said McGonagall, in a voice that could cut glass, "that you won't treat him any differently. It takes some time for all of our new teachers to adjust to the idea, but I'm hopeful that you can see him for who he is, given your unique perspective."
Lily frowned. "You mean because I'm Muggle-born."
"Because you're Muggle-born in a time of radical Muggle hatred, yes."
At least McGonagall wasn't making soft allusions or padding her words. Lily despised people who referred to her Muggle-born status in roundabout, careful wording designed to hide the word "Muggle" as if it were a slur or a disservice. However…
"The two are hardly similar," Lily said. "Both are marginalised, yes, but Muggle-borns are simply people with magic and no matter how much you like this boy, you can't deny that werewolves are dangerous come full moon. Whether they intend to be or not, they are dangerous by nature. There's nothing an untrained Muggle-born could do that would approach the sort of damage a werewolf at full moon could cause."
"I had hoped you would be more empathetic, is what I meant."
Lily didn't like being made to feel guilty about anything, but she tired of this conversation and surrendered. It wouldn't do to start a fight with Minerva McGonagall.
"I won't ostracise him in class," she told McGonagall wearily. "I won't treat him any differently than the other students."
"That's all I need from you," McGonagall said. "And your word you won't go telling people about this."
"I'm rather good at keeping secrets," said Lily, "but I'm sure you know that, since you vouched for me with the Order."
McGonagall smiled. "Vouching for you was more of a…an appraisal of character, but I do trust you to keep your word." She stood up and brushed her robes down to smooth out any wrinkles. "I hope you do well tomorrow."
Lily's stomach did an odd little flip. "Oh. Yes. I do too."
She stood up as well, following McGonagall to the door leading out of her office. She opened it for the other woman and smiled as widely as she dared, for fear of looking forced. Lily had years to go before she could fool her former professor, however, and McGonagall gave her a sympathetic grimace.
"Good night, Minerva," she said with a light tone.
"Good night, Lily," McGonagall replied. It sounded much more like "good luck."
Lily was still shaking when she knocked on the Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher's door—or at least, she hoped it was the right door. She hadn't actually visited the office since returning to the school.
Thankfully, she heard Uriah's voice calling through the thick wood, "It's open!"
She turned the handle and let herself in, awkwardly peering into the small room.
"Sorry to bother you," she said by way of greeting.
Uriah was sorting his bookcase across the room, neck craned as he shuffled tomes a shelf too high for his reach, occasionally resorting to a wave of his wand to get the job done. He looked over his shoulder at her voice.
"Ah, Lily! No bother at all," he assured her. "Give me one moment and I'll be free to chat."
"Thank you."
"Of course! Take a seat."
Lily shut the door and trudged over to the plush green chair, settling in and admiring how comfortable it was. None of the chairs in her office were this nice…she decided to charm them so it felt like sitting in a bed of pillows when she returned. Or at least her own, if nothing else.
By the window lay a brightly woven rug, red and gold and green, swirls of colour that drew her gaze and held it captive. It looked as though the colours were actually moving and swimming, and after a moment's thought she considered they probably were.
"My ma gave that to me," Uriah said as he passed her on his way to sit down. "A welcome home gift. She was quite glad I returned to England."
"Even though your parents sent you abroad for school," Lily said.
"Well, it's no different from sending your child off to Hogwarts for ten months out of the year," Uriah pointed out. "The fact that I stayed in New Delhi for so long to teach was what upset her. Especially after my father passed. I try to visit her on the weekends if I can. Anyhow, what brings you here?"
She fidgeted in the comfortable chair. "Ah…er, you said I could talk to you if I needed help with something…"
"Already?" he chuckled. Lily wasn't sure what sort of face she made at that, but whatever it was, Uriah's smile slid off his face like water off a stone. "What happened?"
She sighed, long and deep and miserable.
"I had my first class just now, before lunch," said Lily. She put her head in her hands. "Third years, a mix of Ravenclaws and Slytherins. Back in my day mixed classes were rare for the cores like Charms or Transfiguration…well, what happened was…"
What had happened was this:
Lily had slept poorly, her thoughts and dreams on werewolves. She'd been distracted throughout breakfast, barely listening to Professor Sprout beside her, and entered her first class of the day with very little preparation. This had not served her well.
Even before the bell had rung to signal the start of class, her students wouldn't even look at her. They'd talked so loudly and determinedly that ten minutes passed before she had managed to quiet them. Even then it had been a malicious quiet, as if they were all waiting for the opportune moment to strike, and that had put Lily on edge and off kilter.
The real trouble had begun when she had taken attendance. The third years of both Houses must have colluded at breakfast because they all responded to the wrong names. Lily knew they were wrong names because it had been so spitefully obvious—no parent would name their son Mary-Alice, nor their daughter Geoffrey. At last she'd given up and moved on to discussing the lesson plans, but now that the beasts had pounced they were not satisfied until they'd torn her to shreds.
According to her students, Flitwick's notes on their progress in the previous semesters were all wrong. Flitwick had never once been inaccurate in the seven years Lily had been his student and she couldn't imagine he'd let himself slide, but her third years were viciously insistent.
The remainder of the class time had been spent in locked debate over which spells had been learned and which hadn't. At least Lily hadn't budged on that front, but neither had they.
For a witch who'd so often prided herself on a stiff backbone and steady nerves, it was beyond humiliating to lose to a room of thirteen- and fourteen-year-olds.
"They ran roughshod all over me," she summed up after explaining all this aloud.
Uriah thought about this, and then snorted. "You've never taught a class before, have you?"
"Of course I haven't!" she snapped, leaning back in her chair. "I'm a Ministry witch, for Merlin's sake! I deal with bureaucrats and disgruntled citizens, not hell beasts."
"And that's your problem," he informed her. His arms folded atop the desk as he leaned in. "You're used to being polite and diplomatic, aren't you?"
Lily paused, her mouth half-open to argue.
That was actually true, if she thought about it. What happened on her Squad was different, that was between coworkers—her actual job of speaking to higher-ups, or managing Muggle affairs like speaking to Muggle-born parents involved a good amount of smiling and smoothing over bad feeling.
"Well—"
"And those third years took advantage of that," Uriah went on. He waggled a finger at her. "Like right now, you're letting me speak over you."
"I'm not letting you," she mumbled in defiance. But he was right, and she knew it.
He chuckled in that easy way of his. "Teaching is different. These brats aren't looking for a mediator, they're looking for a mentor. You're not their friend, you're not their accommodating helper—you're their teacher and their disciplinarian. You can't ever treat them like they're equal to you because in the classroom and outside it, they are not. You're in charge. I'm going to take a guess that you've never held a management position, either."
"No..." she admitted reluctantly. "But I don't want to come off superior—"
"You are, though," he said. "Not as a human being, perhaps, but you're more knowledgeable than them in Charms, and they have to defer to your expertise."
"So I can't be friendly," Lily said, her shoulders slumping. She hated the thought of it—she had been friendly with her teachers, Flitwick especially, and Slughorn had always taken a shine to her. The sort of professor Lily wanted to be wasn't the one Uriah described, closer to McGongall than Flitwick.
Uriah shook his head. "You can be friendly," he corrected her, "but you can't be friends. See the difference?"
She thought about it. "I suppose."
"Don't treat them like you're trying to get on their good side. It's their job to get on yours, not the other way around."
Lily sighed and rubbed her forehead. "That's all well and good," she told him, "and thank you, but how on earth do I go about doing that?"
He smirked. "That class you had just now? They weren't trying to mess with you just for the fun of it. They want to push and see how far you'll bend."
"What?"
"It's a test," said Uriah as he reclined into his chair. "They've just gotten back from holiday, they've got a new teacher—'how much can we get away with,' is what they're thinking. I promise your next class will be just like them, if not worse. Who do you have?"
"The sixth years," she sighed.
Uriah nodded. "We've got a bunch of smart ones in that year. Smart arses, to boot. Well, here's the secret to making them respect you: prove you're better than them."
"Oh? And that means…"
"Show them who's in charge in that classroom," he said. "One grand act of magic, really put it all out there—impress them, and then don't give any ground. Lay down the law as soon as you can. You'll have to improvise when you get your third year students back for a second lesson, though, since that sort of trick won't work on them."
"Be better than them," Lily repeated slowly. It sounded far too simple. "That's really it?"
"That's really it. Listen, students can tell when their professor isn't confident. They're predatory that way." He shrugged, smiling. "Don't be their prey."
Easier said than done, Lily argued, but didn't say it aloud. Instead she said, "Thanks."
"Mm hmm, not a problem," he answered, and raised his eyebrows. "You seem awfully upset, though."
"Who wouldn't be?" she said. "I've always been good at these sorts of things—always top of my class, Prefect, Head Girl—and I'm…I'm much more used to being the person sought out for advice, rather than the seeker."
"You can't expect to be good at something like teaching right away," Uriah told her. "It's not possible. That's not how it works."
Lily bit her lip and turned her eyes downcast. She knew that. Never once had she imagined that teaching would be a breeze, not once, but to have gotten off to such a terrible start…she hadn't imagined that, either.
Uriah cleared his throat. "Hungry? It is lunchtime, after all."
She hadn't thought about it. She'd been too focused on her failure of a first lesson to even consider food…but now that Uriah had gone and mentioned it, her stomach was helpfully reminding her of her very light breakfast.
"Well, I was about to head down to the kitchens and grab a bite," said Uriah, "since I don't really feel like eating with a crowd. You're welcome to join me; if you do, I'll tell you all about my unfortunate first year of teaching and you can laugh at me. You do know where the kitchens are, don't you? Or were you a prim-and-proper princess back in school?"
Lily's mouth opened. "Excuse you," she said, "I may have been Head Girl but I didn't have a stick up my arse. Of course I know where the bloody kitchens are."
Her best friend since fourth year had been Cassie Delaney, Hufflepuff and delinquent extraordinaire, after all. Sneaking down to the kitchens after curfew was only one of the lesser offences she had committed.
"Alright, alright, no need to be vulgar," Uriah teased as he stood.
"If you think that's vulgar," Lily replied, "you should meet my friend."
Lily had more or less gotten her confidence back by the time lunch was over and classes were to start; she said farewell to Uriah on the third floor landing and strolled down the corridor to her classroom, determined to put on a better show this afternoon than she had this morning. N.E.W.T. level students were eager to learn, right? Or was that just her…
She'd only just arrived and had begun shuffling papers on her desk when the first pair of students arrived—boy and girl, arms interlocked. Clearly, they didn't care whether or not Lily was in the room.
"Promise you'll come eat dinner with me," the girl begged.
"I suppose it won't hurt," said the boy before planting a kiss on her cheek and scurrying off, a brilliant flush settling on his cheeks and neck.
Lily watched him exit her classroom with some amazement, and then turned to observe the girl who was sighing happily. Had another group of girls not stumbled through the doorway just then, Lily was certain the moment would have grown awkward between student and teacher. Young love. That was something she hadn't seen in years.
Once the first few had come in, the rest of her sixth year N.E.W.T. students followed in a flood of hoots, laughs, and chatter that had her wincing from the suddenness. She endured it until the bell rang—an astonishingly long two minutes—and then cleared her throat.
"All right, settle down," Lily called out.
The sixth years continued to gab loudly, and a couple of black-haired boys started throwing crumpled pieces of parchment at each other without any attention paid to her efforts.
"Excuse me," she said, a little louder now.
Absolutely nothing. Lily had stood in front of battle-hardened Aurors, cold-blooded politicians, and a trial board on the Committee for Experimental Charms, none of them willing to listen to a young Muggle-born woman, yet none of them had made her feel quite so powerless as these teenagers.
The two boys tossing parchment were joined by another boy with blond hair and a stout physique. His aim was less precise than the other boys, and a missed shot hit the back of a girl's head. She shrieked her displeasure, and Lily winced at the sound.
"Excuse me!"
The girl began tossing hexes at the boys, who pulled out their wands.
"Oy, calm down, Jones," one of them called.
"You rat, Pettigrew!" Jones screeched. "You did that on purpose!"
Lily stared. Were we that hideous in sixth year? she wondered. Certainly not—except she did recall that one time she and Cassie had given Professor Marsh the runaround…
I was a prefect and Head Girl, Lily reminded herself, straightening her spine. I wrangled students for three years. Remember what Uriah said—show them who's in charge with one grand act. An idea caught hold in her mind and she snapped her wand at the classroom.
It took a few moments for everyone to realise what she had done, but eventually all thirty-one pairs of eyes snapped to her, mouthing their shock soundlessly.
"Hello," Lily said, smiling pleasantly and with more than a little smugness in her tone. "I'm your new professor, Lily Evans. Professor Dumbledore introduced me last night. Thank you for giving me your full and undivided attention, it's so appreciated. I'm new to teaching, so the respectful welcome you've shown me so far has been the highlight of my day."
The sixth years all looked rather stunned, glancing at each other in confusion and back up at her.
"Yes, you can see that this class could have started much better," she told them, her smile still in place. "I'm sure you won't make that mistake again. Now, has Professor Flitwick started you on nonverbal spellcasting?"
A couple students raised their hands before remembering they couldn't answer her.
"Yeah, he started us on nonverbals at the beginning of last term."
It was a boy with messy black hair, one of the pair who'd been throwing parchment about. His colouring was a shade or two lighter Uriah's but still quite dark. He reclined in his chair with crossed arms and smirking lips, his wand dangling carelessly between his right fingers. Lily imagined he took a great pleasure in confrontation, or at least in winning. His sharp eyes observed her behind thin, rectangular frames.
She glanced down at her list of students. "What's your name?"
"James Potter." He said this as though it were a very important fact.
Lily glanced down at her roster to find his House. "Very nice to meet you, Mr Potter," she said. "Ten points to Gryffindor for being the first student to remove the Silencing Charm."
He leaned back in his chair a bit further, a smirk blossoming on his face.
"And five points from Gryffindor for tossing parchment around instead of paying attention at the beginning of class," she continued. Potter's smile partially collapsed, much to her amusement. "And your two friends? Names and Houses?"
"Sirius Black," said the other black-haired boy. He leaned forward in his seat much as a thrill-seeker might lean over a bridge rail, elbows on desk, grey eyes alert and glinting. He was interesting—a gleefulness mingled with his admission of guilt, like he was searching for punishment. "Also Gryffindor. Same with my mate Peter Pettigrew here."
"Excellent, five points from both of you as well."
The still-silent Pettigrew slumped in his seat dejectedly.
Lily spared him a glance. He was…washed out, reminding her of amateur watercolor painting. Nothing about him struck her as remarkable, so what was he doing with these two? She put the thought aside.
"To be clear," she addressed the three of them, "I don't enjoy taking points from you. After all, Gryffindor was my house." She raised her voice for the rest of the class. "If you can take the Silencing Charm off yourself by the end of class, there will be no homework. If not, a roll of parchment on the necessities of nonverbal spells and their various uses in critical situations. I'll know if you help another student remove the charm, and I will take points. We already know Mr Black and Mr Potter will be free of homework, so it can be done if you put your mind to it."
"Yeah, but we're clever," Potter replied cockily.
Lily raised her eyebrows. "Yes, I had assumed all N.E.W.T. level students were clever enough to handle nonverbal spellwork. Unless you're implying you and Mr Black are superior to all your classmates, which I sincerely hope not."
Potter shrugged. "Not superior…but we are top of our class."
"Congratulations," she said dryly. "I hope that makes you very happy. I rather suspect it does."
Although most of the class was still silent (Lily could see most of the students hard at work on releasing their Silencing Charms), a few chuckles greeted her assessment of Potter. For his part, Potter's smirk remained and he kept his attention solely on her.
"Now," Lily continued, "I'd rather not be a stranger to you, so if you have any questions for me this is a good time to ask."
A girl raised her hand, the one Lily recognised as Jones. "Do you know why Professor Flitwick went on sabbatical?"
"Jones, is it?" Lily glanced down at her class roster. "Hestia Jones?" The girl nodded. "I do, in fact. Professor Flitwick has long been interested in studying ancient Incan Charms, and this was the time he chose to take a leave of absence and make good on his interests. I must say, I'm rather envious of him; even the little we know of their spellwork is incredible. Also, Miss Jones, I do need to take five points from your House for throwing hexes in my classroom."
"…I'm in Hufflepuff, Professor."
"Thank you for your honesty," Lily told her, trying to infuse her smile with sympathy and sternness. She wasn't at all sure she'd succeeded; Hestia Jones looked upset at the loss of points.
Another hand shot up; Sirius Black leaned forward in his seat. "What did you do before you came here?" he called out.
"I work at the Ministry," she began. "I'm employed as a—"
"You work at the Ministry?" Black interrupted. "But you're here now."
"Yes; I'm only here for two terms," said Lily. "It's fascinating the things you learn if you don't interrupt people when they're talking."
"Alright, sorry, sorry," Black said, sounding not sorry at all. "So what did you do at the Ministry—sorry, what do you do there?"
"I'm a hit wizard."
Most of the class sat up a bit straighter in their seats, more hands shooting up. Black and Potter were the exceptions, Black leaning over his desk and Potter still reclining in his seat.
Lily pointed to the boy sitting to Potter's left. His sandy blond hair brushed dangerously close to his eyes, threatening to cover them entirely. He was pale with scars marring his chin and the bridge of his nose.
"Yes, Mr…?"
"Remus Lupin," the boy said. "And—sorry, shouldn't it be hit witch?"
The werewolf, she realised, the one McGonagall had spoken to her about. Even if she hadn't known his name she might have guessed. No other student would hold themselves so delicately under her gaze. Her neighbour in Cokeworth had a small dog, a rescued animal that was beaten by its previous owner. The way it shied away from touch as if expecting to receive a hit…this boy reminded her strongly of that little dog.
"Excellent question; I'm glad you asked that," she said. "That's a very common misconception. While Medi-wizards and Medi-witches make a distinction between genders, hit wizards are like Aurors. It's a title."
"What do hit wizards do?" said Black. He had his hand facing the general direction of up. "I mean, if we've already got Aurors, what's the point of hit wizards?"
"Aurors face the larger threats to our world, such as Dark wizards and giant attacks," Lily explained. "Hit wizards take care of lesser criminals, disturbances, and threats to the International Statute of Secrecy. At least, that's how it's supposed to be during a time of peace. The last few years have been a bit unusual."
Another hand went up. "Why is it unusual?"
"Because of the war, Miss…"
"Selwynn. Estella Selwynn," the girl said. With her platinum hair and her ice blue eyes, she looked like she'd been carved out of pure crystal. "And what's this war you're talking about?"
The class stopped their efforts to remove Lily's Silencing Charm, most of them with wary expressions.
Lily, for her part, was quite taken aback. "I beg your pardon?"
"What war?"
"The one against Voldemort and his Followers," said Lily, ignoring her students' discomfort at the taboo name. "I realise Hogwarts is a very sheltering environment, but certainly one of your friends subscribes to the Daily Prophet. There are violent attacks at least once a week that—the recent massacre of Ottery St. Catchpole, for example."
"That was a misunderstanding," Estella Selwynn claimed. "The current movement within the wizarding community is a peaceful protest against the infiltration of Muggle culture where it is neither needed nor wanted."
Lily stared. The name "Selwynn" struck a chord in her memory, and Lily grasped around until she remembered—the Selwynns were on the Order's list of suspected Followers. Shouldn't this girl be more aware of what was happening around her, if one or more of her family members belonged in Voldemort's inner circle? Or had her upbringing been so skewed that…
"Miss Selwynn, do you perhaps not grasp the severity of murder?"
The girl scoffed. "Who was murdered? All these claims of death and violence are part of an elaborate scare tactic to further support for the Ministry and detract from the very real concerns of the Followers."
"Well, then it's not working, Estie," Black said loudly, "or have you not noticed the growing dissatisfaction with the Ministry of Magic? Not to mention the Minister's cousin died."
"You don't believe that, do you?" Selwynn shot at him.
"Yeah, because I'm not living in a delusion!"
"Thank you, Mr Black, very succinct," said Lily. "Although in this class, please address others with respect. As to you, Miss Selwynn, a bit of research would do you some good."
Selwynn glared at her but said nothing more.
Lily scanned for another hand. "Yes, Mr…"
"Terry Lindley. Yeah, I was just wondering what sort of things you faced as a hit wizard."
"All sorts of things," she said, relieved. "Petty criminals selling Dark magic artefacts, infestations of Dark Creatures of varying classifications, raids, crowd control—I work with a Muggle Squad and our main focus is protecting the non-magical community from various threats."
Potter raised his hand again. "Sounds dangerous."
"Someone has to do it," Lily pointed out. "Yes, Mr Lu—"
"Wait, wait, I've got another question!"
She sighed. "Yes, Mr Potter?"
"Are you single?"
"That's inappropriate," said Lily. "Mr Lupin, go ahead with your question."
"I feel like it's a very valid question, really," Potter plowed ahead. Lupin grimaced at the other boy, which went unheeded. "I mean, we're trying to get to know you with this exercise, after all."
Lily pressed her lips together in imitation of smiling. "I appreciate your…thoroughness, but I will not be answering questions of that nature. Mr Lupin?"
"I heard about this…attack, sort of, on New Year's," said Lupin. Her heart skittered. "There were accounts of multiple Inferi which is supposed to be impossible, and I asked Professor Meadowes about it and he said a hit wizard might know what the real story is—"
"There seems to have been an advancement in the making of Inferi," Lily answered quietly. Her thoughts flashed to Dagley's mangled leg for one horrifying second. "Whatever condition that provokes Inferi to attack each other if they are in proximity to one another has apparently been overwritten. I can't tell you the particulars, partly because that's not public information and partly because we just don't know. It's a very recent development and the Ministry has only come into contact with multiple Inferi once. At least, so far as I know."
Several more hands shot up.
Lily spent the rest of the lesson discussing Inferi and the Ministry. She did her best to answer the questions her sixth years had, but the fact that she had few clear answers appeared to disappoint them. For Lily, it only served to drive home just how outmatched the Ministry was against Voldemort's army.
Only two students still remained under her Silencing Spell by the time the bell rang, a Hufflepuff named Marjorie Dunhill (the same girl who'd been the first to arrive with her boyfriend) and that Pettigrew boy whom Black had claimed as his friend. Lily was tempted to wave off the homework she had threatened after seeing Dunhill's and Pettigrew's distress—but no, she had to remain firm lest she lose the entire point of the spell in the first place.
"Bad luck, Pete," she heard Potter saying as the students packed up their things.
"You'll help me, won't you?" Pettigrew begged.
"Ah, but how will you learn?" Black replied with a derisive snort.
"Padfoot—"
"Professor," Potter called over to her with a winning smile, "Peter here needs some help with his homework. Do you do one-on-ones with students?"
Lily pursed her lips. "My office hours are Tuesdays and Thursdays after dinner," she said cautiously. It felt like Potter was leading her over the edge of a cliff, somehow.
"No, but do you do one-on-ones?"
"I'm willing to tutor a student in Charms individually, yes," said Lily.
Potter looked rather put out. She assumed that whatever joke he'd been setting up had been successfully thwarted—and thank Merlin for that.
"James, let's go," urged Lupin quietly. He glanced over at Lily before ducking his head. "I've got Arithmancy next, remember?"
"Ah, alright," Potter said with a glance to Lily of his own. He flung an arm around Black's shoulders. "Say, any of you lot hungry?"
They began to shuffle out of her classroom at a leisurely pace.
"You realise lunch was an hour ago," Lupin said.
"So what?"
Lily leaned back in her chair after every student had gone and heaved a sigh.
That had certainly gone better than her first class, James Potter or Estella Selwynn notwithstanding. That girl…Lily was worried about her. Selwynn had that dangerous, ostrich-like way of looking at the world Lily had never learnt to tolerate. She'd have to watch her tongue toward the girl in class.
But at least they respected her, she reminded herself with a smile. Perhaps she really could do this after all.
Lily impressed her fourth year Gryffindor and Hufflepuff students with an easy Bubblehead Charm, encasing each student in their own private fishbowl until they quieted down and paid heed. Since the Bubblehead Charm was a fifth year spell, Lily didn't offer them the same deal as her N.E.W.T. class and instead removed the Charm for each student whom she called on to answer a question about Switching Spells.
By the time the class let out, all of them had answered a question and Lily couldn't help but pat herself on the back for earning their appreciation and enforcing class participation in one fell swoop.
Her fourth years were still shuffling out of the classroom when the first of her second years arrived, expressions ranging from mildly apprehensive to sheer panic.
She had the Gryffindor and Hufflepuff second years today, something she'd made a note of before the day had even begun. Her interest in the class had everything with Annie, who entered the room with a group of girls and gave Lily a short glance before looking away.
Lily tried not to feel troubled by that. She reminded herself that Annie was likely still embarrassed by last night's fumble in front of the entire school, and that was partly Lily's doing.
In a pleasant turn of events, Lily wasn't forced to use drastic measures to get her second years to pay attention to her. Instead, they sat quietly after the bell rang, and the entire class period ran smoothly.
Lily was so relieved by this cooperation that, by the time the class ended, she fell into her chair behind her desk with a smile and a sigh of relief—until she noticed Annie packing up her things along with her classmates. She just barely managed to restrain herself from jumping back up and demanding the girl stay behind.
She waited for a minute, shuffling papers on her desk in an effort to look busy, her ears straining to catch the voices of her students as if she could somehow pick out Annie's voice from among the throng.
Drawing attention to the girl wouldn't do any good. If Annie hadn't been bombarded with questions after the welcoming feast, she surely would be if the new Charms professor immediately pounced on her after class.
So she waited until half her students had gone before looking up.
"Miss Miyamura," Lily called, keeping her tone light. "A moment, if you please?"
Annie cast a look at the group of girls she had fallen into stride with. They waved her off kindly. Lily overheard one of them promising to save a seat during dinner. She smiled at them before ducking her head and hurrying over to Lily's desk, stopping short just in front.
"Professor?" she murmured with lowered eyes.
"Take a seat," Lily offered.
She couldn't deny that the way Annie was acting had a certain sting. Lily thought the pair of them had struck up a rapport, albeit a brief one under duress, but perhaps she was wrong.
Annie dropped into a seat in one fluid, flinging motion. Lily couldn't see the girl's feet but from the way her legs were swinging, Lily guessed Annie's feet didn't quite touch the floor. She dropped her bag on her lap and curled her fingers into the straps so tightly that Lily could see several of her fingertips whiten.
"I wanted to see how you were doing," said Lily. "I had to leave after…I just didn't want you to think I'd forgotten about you."
"I didn't think that."
"Good," she said, unable to say anything else. She grasped for words that wouldn't make Annie draw into herself any further. "That's good. See, my partner was injured…well, it's not important right now."
Merlin forbid she traumatise the girl further.
Lily cleared her throat. "In any case, I've been a bit worried about you."
Annie looked down at her hands and twisted the bag straps into a complicated pattern. "I'm alright," she told Lily in a soft voice.
"Annie," Lily began, and then hesitated. She had decided to speak formally to her students, using last names and "Mr" or "Miss" to highlight the separation between them…but she had known Annie before they had become student and teacher, and she couldn't bring herself to call the girl in front of her "Miss Miyamura" as if she were a distant stranger. That didn't feel right.
"Annie," she said again, "you don't have to pretend everything's fine."
"I'm a Gryffindor," whispered Annie.
It was just like that night, when Lily had offered the memory wipe. Clearly, Annie had her pride.
"Not feeling alright is understandable," Lily told her gently. "Normal, even—everyone gets nightmares after experiencing something like that. Aurors and hit wizards have nightmares all the time."
With this, Annie looked up, her eyes widening. "You…how did you know?"
Lily didn't mention the bags under the girl's eyes. Instead she said, "What happened on New Year's was something most people will never have to go through. They won't experience even a tenth of it."
"I…" Annie dropped her head again. "I keep trying to be brave. That's what being a Gryffindor means, being brave and noble and…I can't stop being scared."
"But you don't need to try to be brave," Lily said. She leaned forward to press her point home. "You're brave enough without trying. Being brave has nothing to do with not being scared, Annie. Not a thing."
"But—"
"I'm scared too," admitted Lily, and now Annie really looked at her for the first time. She realised the girl had been ashamed, saw it in the droop of her shoulders and the hang of her head. "Remember when you first saw me? I was screaming and I nearly lost my head because that idiot Gideon used me as bait. You did see me fall over, didn't you?"
Annie nodded.
"I looked awfully silly, didn't I?"
Though she tried to hide it, Annie let a small smile shine through. "A bit."
Lily smiled back as wide as she could manage. "See? That entire night I was so scared I didn't know what to do with myself. But that's the thing about bravery—it's knowing when you're scared and still doing the right thing, because you know it's more important. You've done the right thing. You were incredibly brave, more so than I'd have been at your age, and now you can let yourself be scared."
"But if I let myself be scared, I don't think I'll ever stop."
"Oh, you won't," she said. There was no point in lying. "Inferi are terrifying. They're Dark Creatures and are forbidden creations for a reason. You're right to be frightened. It'll just get easier. You'll get used to it."
"Are you used to it?" asked Annie.
"Hmm?"
"Are you used to Inferi?" she clarified. "Or…everything, maybe."
Lily leaned back in her chair and put her hands together in a steeple of thought. After a minute she answered, "I'm not as used to it as I ought to be. That's one of the reasons I'm here. But I suppose…I'm used to it enough that I don't freeze up anymore. I used to do that, sometimes. I'd freeze with fear and wouldn't know what to do with myself."
Even Cassie or Dagley hadn't gotten her to confess to this sort of thing.
Somehow, this felt like the most important conversation she'd had in a long time, and the most necessary conversation she'd have for years to come. It mattered that Annie Miyamura had the truth from her, that Lily didn't become another adult serving useless platitudes and ignoring anything unpleasant. The idea that children couldn't handle truths was idiocy; what children couldn't handle was knowing the truth while the world lied to them. Lily knew that well.
"You know, I'm a Muggle-born, too," she said. "And though I had someone to tell me what I am before I got my letter, there were a few years of my life I thought I was…that there was something wrong with me. I think we—Muggle-borns—know what bravery is better than most people, far earlier than most people. You know what I'm talking about, don't you?"
"Yes," said Annie, her head bobbing up and down rapidly. "My parents were always worried about me, but they never said anything until my letter—but I knew they were. And I just…well, I had to act normal, didn't I?"
"Exactly."
"And then I got my letter and everything was different, and I was more alone than ever…" Annie bit her lip. "Is that…I don't know…"
"You were alone and you went through it all anyway," Lily finished for her, nodding enthusiastically. "You took it and went on. That's what every scary thing is like, I suppose. You take it as it is, and then you get used to it, and if you're lucky it will stop being scary."
"So I won't always have nightmares."
She sounded so hopeful, her eyes filled with something light and alive, but Lily still couldn't bring herself to lie to that face.
"Nightmares are always going to happen," she said reluctantly. "I can't tell you if or when they'll stop. I'm sorry."
"Oh."
"But I don't want you to think they'll be as bad or as often," Lily went on. "We're made to accept change. If you ask me, I think in a month's time your nightmares about the Inferi will happen less and less."
"A whole month?"
Lily chuckled. "Or, if you like, in just one month."
Annie shook her head. "But what if I want them to stop right now?"
"Well," she mused, "you could always ask Madam Pomfrey for a Dreamless Sleep potion. That's what I take when my nightmares happen. I could tell her to expect you. Honestly, I think the best cure for feeling scared is to talk about it with someone."
"Who do you talk to when you're scared?"
"No one," Lily admitted wryly. "Sometimes I talk to my friend about it"—she tried not to think of Cassie—"but I don't do it nearly as often as I should. I beg of you, don't be like me."
"But you're the bravest person I know."
Well.
She pushed aside the pleased warmth she gained from those words.
"How about this," Lily said. "If I promise to talk more about my nightmares with someone, you'll do the same?"
Annie considered it for a moment and then nodded. "Alright. Could I…could I talk to you?"
"Of course," she said. "Always."
Perhaps she shouldn't have spoken so candidly of her nightmares to Annie, because one came to visit her that night.
She couldn't move, her leg buried knee-deep in snow that held her in place. And in the grip of the snow she felt a hand even colder, a hand that dragged her down below the surface and she froze. She had no leg, then, and saw it in the grip of an Inferius, dripping from where it had been torn off her. She looked down at where her leg had been and saw only blood on the snow.
The Inferius' mouth opened wide—and she could see the Inferius was once Tim, though now rotted and deformed—and he devoured her leg in one bloody bite. Dagley watched and said "Now we're the same." He was gaunt, too, an Inferius in the making. She looked at her hands and saw they were white as death.
Then she fell through the snow as Tim pulled at her. The snow was gone and she was in the sun-soaked streets of London, and her parents were sitting at the table across from her. Her mother's large brimmed hat tilted at a steep angle. Lily reached out and snatched up that hat and then the crowds began screaming. Her mother screamed too. When Lily turned to see the commotion, she saw six Followers in their black garb and skull masks. One had his wand directed on her like a conductor ready to unleash a cacophony. She turned back and lunged for her parents.
Lily woke from that in a cold sweat.
Her room was still dark; though the curtains were closed, no sunlight peeked from under the fabric. She glanced over at her clock which whispered drowsily that it was only a quarter past five, and she ought to still be asleep.
With her heart still racing, Lily knew she wouldn't be able to drift off until it was time for her to begin the day. She flopped onto her back and tugged the covers up to her chin.
"They come from something," she murmured to her ceiling.
It was so obvious, thinking of it now. The Inferi that raided the Muggle town on New Year's Eve, they had been people once. Reanimated corpses.
Lily hadn't even considered it. Well, she had considered it, in that she knew what Inferi were and where they came from, but that was an academic understanding. She hadn't let it sink in. The Inferi she had faced were so far from their original selves she had not stopped to think that the creatures she blasted away with magic were once people who talked and breathed and laughed and…
She felt sick.
Her former partner, Gertrude Fellows—what if she'd been reanimated? What if whoever was creating these Inferi on Voldemort's behalf had stolen from Gertrude's grave? Lily didn't think she'd be able to burn her partner's remains. It was sheer luck that no one she'd once known had risen from the grave to menace her that night.
Thinking about this did absolutely no good to anyone, but now that she had started Lily couldn't stop. Every person who had ever died in her life pushed themselves to the front of her mind, their faces twisted in death and reanimation. Familiar features turned alien.
When she pictured her parents as Inferi, Lily tugged the covers over her head and shut her eyes so tightly she saw bursts of light on her eyelids.
"Don't," she urged herself. "Don't, don't, don't."
She took a deep breath and held it until she couldn't any longer, and then released the air from her lungs as slowly as possible. At first her heart picked up, and then it slowed to a steady, peaceful rhythm.
Meg had taught her this one night when they'd both taken a respite in the women's sleeping cots, almost two years ago now. First Muggle Squad had come off a long shift and had only six hours until the next one, and rather than tough it out both women had decided to catch whatever sleep they could. Lily had had one of the worst nightmares of her life and had woken Meg with her screaming.
After managing to calm her down, Meg had proceeded to give Lily a number of techniques to escape the grip of nightmares, and Lily had applied the practices to other forms of self-made fear. This wasn't the first time her mind chose to run through all the terrible possibilities she might face.
Lily took several more long held-in breaths before throwing the covers off her and again stared up at the ceiling.
There was no point lounging about in bed if she wasn't going to sleep, so she stood up and stretched, deciding to take a nice, hot shower and tuck away all these worries. Perhaps then the unpleasant tightness in her stomach would abate.
When she finally felt fresh and warm under the water, the terrors of the night washed away, Lily left the shower and dried herself off thoroughly before wrapping herself in her soft bathrobe.
Lily left the bathroom with still wet hair (to her mirror's dismay) and went to grab her wand on her bedside table. She blew hot air from the tip of it and dried her hair into the gentle waves it always fell into after being washed.
As she finished drying her hair, Lily considered what to do with her time before breakfast. She had nothing pressing, so she decided to indulge herself and watch the sunrise and sat down on the chair in front of her bedroom window.
She looked out the window at the expanse of grounds and put her chin in hand, elbow on the windowsill. The sun was still absent but there was a lightness to the morning sky, a grey anticipation for sunlight.
Lily let her eyes drift. Really, she hadn't looked out her window yet, not the way she should have. This was a real view from a Hogwarts window, a sight not seen in so long she'd forgotten how enchanting the grounds were from this height. To her left, the lake had frosted over at the edges but the water was still churning as, in the distant middle, a giant tentacle splashed the surface. To the right of that were the greenhouses, the glass ceilings foggy with the inside warmth. And to the right of that, far right of her field of vision, the Quidditch pitch stood proudly in the chill with gold hoops high and waiting.
She squinted.
Several someones were tracking through the snow, out of the front doors and to the Quidditch pitch. Ten someones, to be exact. She counted them in confusion. All ten had brooms in hand, and the two at the front walked side by side with a box levitated before them.
"What on earth is the time?" she murmured.
"Six twenty-three," her clock chimed in.
"That's much too early."
Lily continued to watch the students as they set down the box and surrounded it in a huddle. They remained like this for several minutes, during which the sun rose higher and brushed the Quidditch pitch, and Lily could make out the colour of their robes. Scarlet and black, the Gryffindor team's practise gear.
Muggle-borns had something of a hard lot with Quidditch—it was the only real Wizarding sport in the British Isles and therefore all Wizarding children knew the rules and the teams, even if they weren't avid fans. Muggle-borns or Muggle-raised half-bloods came into Hogwarts with knowledge of football and tennis and rugby, and when they inquired about this new sport they were met with incredulity and scorn for not already knowing all about it.
Lily's father had raised her to love football, so she had experienced this phenomenon personally. While all of the magically-raised students were aghast that she didn't know the rules of Quidditch, no one had deigned to explain them to her. By the time Lily had befriended Cassie it was too embarrassing to admit she was still clueless. Oh, she'd figured out the basics, like catching the Snitch was one hundred fifty points and a game ender, and that a Quaffle score amounted to ten points…but the finer details like what constituted a foul or a penalty shot went over her head.
All the same, she found the entire game fascinating.
She kept her eyes on the Gryffindors as they mounted their brooms and took a few laps around the pitch before settling into drills.
Even not knowing much about Quidditch plays, Lily could tell this was a superb team. They flew together in perfect synchronicity, swooping and swerving in complicated patterns without ever being in danger of hitting each other in mid-air. Once or twice Lily spotted a couple of fumbled plays (these were given away by the Quaffle's unexpected descent) but the captain flew in and went over the drill. She assumed it was the captain, anyway.
This went on for some time, until the sun rose past the treetops and shone brightly on the snow and she had to blink constantly to keep watching the practise.
Lily moved from the window when her eyes began to water, closing the curtains halfway. When she glanced at her clock she saw that it was sixteen minutes past seven, which came as a shock to her. It hadn't felt like nearly an hour sitting at the window to her, but then again, she wasn't entirely awake yet.
She stretched her arms up over her head and yawned loudly. "I should get dressed," she said. "Yes. The blue robes."
Even with her spoken decision Lily stood on the spot for several more minutes, lost to her lack of sleep. For all that she'd taken the position at Hogwarts to rest, Lily couldn't seem to get much of it.
That settled it for her, as she chided herself into moving at last. Tonight she would go and get the Dreamless Sleep potion from Madam Pomfrey, no excuses. Her talents had never been in self-care, not even at the best of times, but if she wanted to keep up with her work Lily needed to at least maintain a decent, regular amount of rest each night.
Just as she'd pulled the last of her blue robes into place, Lily heard the sound of a tapping on her window. For one wild moment she imagined it might be one of the Gryffindor players on broom, until reason caught up with her and she shook her head at her silliness. Hundred to one odds it was Angelia, back from roosting in the owlery.
It was an owl, as it turned out, but not Angelia.
Lily stepped back and let Francis fly into her room. He landed atop Angelia's cage and shook his feathers out with dignity before dropping Dagley's letter into her waiting hand.
Her heart stuttered and a shy warmth snuck into her stomach. Just like that, she was awake and anxious to open the envelope. First though, she looked to Francis.
"You can take Angelia's food if you're hungry," she said, "and feel free to rest."
Francis stared her down with austere eyes before lifting his head and turning to look at the wall, as if demonstrating to Lily that he didn't need things like "rest" or "food" while working. Francis was a proud bird, no doubt about that.
Lily sat down on her bed, still unmade, and pried open the envelope flap. Her fingers shook a little as she unfolded the parchment inside.
Dear Lily, it read in blocky printing, and she stupidly smiled at the salutation as if it were special.
"Get a grip, Evans," she commanded herself, and dove back into reading.
Dear Lily,
I hope you haven't been beaten into submission by those little mongrels at school. Knowing you, they've all cowered at your feet, but then again, teenagers are a class of monster all on their own. I daresay children are something quite beyond me, but I wish you the best of luck.
The leg's fine. I know you've been beating yourself up for that even after I told you not to, so I wanted you to know I can keep the leg and in a few weeks' time it'll be as if nothing ever happened, though I do get to keep a scar along with the leg. I'll show it to you sometime, since it isn't every day one gets to see a scar of bite marks. I've been taken off active duty for the time being, since they don't want someone with a cane in the field.
I think that's for the best, considering I haven't been assigned a new partner yet. Both Meg and Lucy want me to join up with them for now but you know how they are, I couldn't get in there if I tried. They're far too close. I might join up with Trust and Lennox, if they'll have me.
Whoever ends up being my partner ought to know they've got large shoes to fill. Of course, you're still my partner, no matter what. I wouldn't trade you in for Alastor Moody if given the chance.
Alright, I might. But so would you, don't lie.
You said in the hospital that I might visit you at school. I might be wrong, but for some reason I thought you might have meant, well, something significant. You know me, Evans, I'm not a patient sort, so I hope I might visit you this next weekend, though perhaps in Hogsmeade.
I know you're not a letter writer, but let me know as soon as possible. I've told Francis to wait for your reply.
Best wishes,
Peter
Lily bit her lip and held the letter close to her face, staring at Dagley's bold font. He was left-handed so his writing always slanted backward instead of forward, leaning to the left in a haphazard fashion that she'd always enjoyed.
Something significant...something significant.
He'd picked up on it—not that she'd tried to hide it, as flustered as she was by the newness of her attraction to him. Dagley knew her well, it seemed.
She released a breathy laugh and fell back on to the bed, holding the letter above her face and reading it again.
He would be alright. His leg wouldn't be damaged permanently, and he wanted to see her soon. About a week from now, eight or nine days to be precise. Just enough time for her to figure out what on earth she was to do with herself.
Lily sat up straight and looked wide-eyed to Francis, who had turned his attention back to her in haughty impatience. She leapt up from the bed and scrambled over to the small space on her writing desk that the bird cage hadn't taken over, and opened the drawer to extract parchment, ink, and a quill.
Dags, she wrote hastily, I'd love to see you next weekend. Lily paused.
Saturday was an Order meeting at eleven o'clock sharp and she couldn't know how long it would last, having only ever been to one. The members had lives, she mused, and things to do outside of a meeting. It couldn't last more than four hours at the most, and if it did she could always excuse herself early.
Let's meet at the Three Broomsticks, 4 o'clock, shall we? Bye til then, Lily.
Dagley was right. Lily had never been a letter writer even with the best of intentions, and after a year at the Ministry she'd given up pursuing the talent entirely in favour of just getting her point across and being done with it. This wasn't a secret, but it still warmed Lily that he also knew this part of her and didn't expect more.
She folded the parchment in half as soon as the lettering dried and tapped it with her wand to seal it, her spell intending only Dagley to be able to open it. As partners in the D.M.L.E., they'd established spells that only allowed access for the pair of them over a year ago. It felt almost silly to use such a spell on a simple thing but she liked having something that only belonged to the two of them.
"Here you are, Francis," she said to the bird, and he snatched the parchment up in his beak. Francis flew out the window with a great sweep of his wings and alarming speed, and she watched him go, unable to keep her grin contained.
An hour later, Lily was still smiling as she entered the Great Hall through the teacher's lounge and took her seat beside Uriah, whose nose was buried in the morning's edition of the Daily Prophet. She remained happily oblivious to all else around her, spooning eggs and potatoes onto her plate, until she happened to glance out to the students and saw many of them reading the news as well—some students with the Prophet had groups around them, huddling to see what was on the page.
She'd been all but floating, but the atmosphere brought her down so harshly that it stung.
Lily didn't get the Daily Prophet. Until several days ago, she'd been working in the front lines and had gotten the news before anyone else. Besides, the Prophet had never been exact in its details and she hated reading half-truths and conjecture. It only occurred to her now that, cut off as she was from daily Ministry life, she wouldn't be nearly as up-to-date as usual.
She leaned over to Uriah and whispered, "What's happened?"
Uriah lowered his paper to look at her. His lips were pale on his dark face. "An Inferi attack," he said quietly. "I know the last one was just a rumour, what with the Inferi en masse, but…it's confirmed now. A hit wizard died."
"What?"
Lily reached over and snatched the paper from his hands, scanning the article nervously. Near the bottom of the second column she read…
"William Fortescue in St. Mungo's for treatment," she murmured, and her lips were numbing with horror. "Athena Hostein dead."
The air in the Great Hall had either become colder or thinner because breathing had become a monumental task. Deep, even breaths were out of the question and she began to shake.
"God," she said, thrusting the paper back into his hands. She dropped her head into her palms, fingers pulling through her hair, fighting to herself composed. "Dear Lord."
Will and Athena were members of the Second Muggle Squad. Lily had worked with them several times, and beyond that had taken a liking to Athena and her sweet way of speaking. She was a fighter, all right, but never had a bad word to say about anyone. They were partners, too, Will and Athena. The worked well together.
They had worked well together.
It didn't say in the tiny bit of the article that she'd read, but they must have been ambushed like Meg and Lucy on New Year's. Except for these two, with no one to come to their aide. There was no Dagley to step in this time.
"You know them?" Uriah asked.
Lily pulled a little at the roots of her hair. "Yes," she said. "Yes, I…did." She lifted her head. "What happened?"
"The article says there was an attack on a Muggle neighbourhood last night," he said. "In Anglesey. Some sources are saying there were as many as twenty Inferi, but I think it might be closer to ten."
"Twenty."
He gave her a curious frown. "What makes you think that?"
"That was…" She cleared her throat. "There were eighteen, the first night. I got the full count, after, but I fought off about seven, myself. Not alone, but… Twenty sounds about right."
"Lily," Uriah said slowly, "you mean to tell me you were there? The night of the first attack?"
Lily had planned to keep that to herself—as much as she could hope to, anyway, with Annie free to tell her story to whomever she liked and Egan MacMillan fully aware. But she didn't want Uriah to doubt the Second Muggle Squad, as if he were doing such a thing by lowering the amount of Inferi. She didn't want him to think the Squad wasn't capable.
Rather than confirm her presence on New Year's, Lily stood up and went back into the teacher's lounge, abandoning her eggs and potatoes. She found herself without an appetite, and any happy feelings over Dagley had been pushed out.
Once inside the lounge, she leaned against the door and took in deep, heavy gulps of air.
Athena's husband would be devastated. She hoped the news had come from Ignacia Wallis, the Squad Leader, rather than him waking up to an empty place in their bed and a newspaper article. Wallis would have gone to him, except…with Will in the hospital, she might have stayed with him until he got better.
The why of this mattering was entirely lost on Lily.
What she did know without a doubt was that, if First Muggle Squad had been fully staffed, they'd have gone to respond to the Inferi. With prior experience in dealing with groups of Inferi, with Trust leading them, the First Muggle Squad was the obvious choice to send in. But Lily had let her partner get injured and had gone off to Hogwarts for a teaching sabbatical, and Second Muggle Squad was thrown into a fight for which they weren't prepared.
And she should have felt guilty over that.
She should have, except she only felt a crushing relief that her Squad had not come to harm, and that relief was the thing that made her feel guilty.
She was a terrible person.
"What am I doing here?" Lily demanded of herself, a rush of anger causing her teeth to clench. She slapped the door and the force of her blow smarted on her palm.
For all that she'd wanted to get away from the death and fighting, now that she was isolated she felt rotten. She had responsibilities, people who relied upon her—Lily knew she was a damn good witch. With her skill set, she was one of the few members of the magical community able to call herself law enforcement. What in Merlin's name was she doing here, at a school?
Lily put her hands over her eyes to push back unwanted tears. She dug the heels of her palms inward, and when she saw fireworks behind her eyelids she pressed harder. It didn't make a difference whether or not she cried. She still didn't want to, though. She wouldn't—couldn't—break down here and now.
"Buck up, Evans," she snapped, although quietly.
This was war, and people died in wars. That was just the way of it.
Why shouldn't she be glad that none of her close friends and Squad members had been the ones under attack? Merlin knew she'd had enough people she cared about suffer. She should take the times they didn't as glad tidings, even at the expense of someone else.
The next time she might not be so lucky.
Lily gave herself to the count of ten to pull herself together, and then straightened, dropping her hands to her sides and exhaling slowly.
Dagley was alive. Meg was alive. They'd both been injured, but they made it through. She felt awful for Athena, and for Athena's husband, but she couldn't let herself fall to pieces over it.
Lily turned and put her hand on the doorknob before pausing. As her emotions cleared, she finally managed to breathe easier. She opened the door and went back into the Great Hall, sitting back down next to Uriah as if nothing had happened.
Very calmly, she said, "Please pass the salt," and looked pointedly away from the newspaper by his hand.
Hello, once again thanks for your patience. Now that we have CONFIRMED that James is a student (it was so hard for me to be cagey about this, really) please feel free to leave a review detailing your opinion. I don't usually reply to reviews, so if you want to talk to me about it I'll be answering questions on my blog, which I've linked to on my profile page. Hopefully most of you will want to keep reading! Cheers.