Chapter Six
December, 1979
The night before had been extremely hectic, with the girls in her dorm running all around, packing things, wrapping presents, sharing last minute gossip, and exchanging gifts. Yet, as the first rays of sun began to light up the dormitory, few would've suspected such a busy night had taken place.
Yawning widely, the redheaded girl by the window made to roll over, only to find herself on the ground. Cursing quietly under her breath, Lily pulled herself up off the floor and began making her bed, a habit she'd yet to break. Then, quietly moving around the dorm, brushing her hair, washing her face and pulling on clothes, Lily got ready to go back to the magic room she'd found the day before. Pulling the ice skates out of her trunk Lily set them in her book bag along with her Transfiguration text and History of Magic essay. For some reason she just didn't want people to know what she was doing. Tucking her wand into her pocket she headed out the door and down the stairs.
A quick stop at the Great Hall and she grabbed toast in a napkin and continued on. Narrowly dodging Filtch, the caretaker, who was stomping around in a particularly sour mood, she crossed to the marble stair case and began climbing to the seventh floor. There she took a left and easily found the tapestry. Lily walked back and forth until the same old door appeared and she stepped inside. The rink looked exactly as it had the day before, the leotard still in the changing room, the same lesson card on the table. 'Make it around the rink five times without falling.' She was definitely starting at the beginning. But Lily soon found that that was exactly where she needed to start. Any silly dreams of getting on the ice and doing jumps and amazing feats were suddenly brought to a shattering reality. She could barely stand, let alone skate. Eventually, after a long time of struggling to get to the other end she found the rhythm. Still, by the time lunch rolled around she'd not completed two laps without falling.
Deciding to come back earlier the next day, Lily stumbled off the ice and tottered into the changing room. Slipping out of her skates and leotard she stepped under the shower that had appeared, dried her hair with a hair drier that had magically appeared, and threw on her jean and tank top before heading back out into the hall with ice skates safely hidden in her book bag.
Walking stiffly down the staircase, being careful with her heavily bruised knees, Lily made slow progress down to the Great Hall where she joined the few Gryffindors at the table. Remus Lupin had stayed, along with Frank Longbottom, but he was sitting with a 'friend', Alice Keys, over at the Hufflepuff table. Aside from them, only a fifth year study-obsessed prefect and a pair of 6th year girls had stayed for the holidays. There were even fewer students at the other house tables and everyone was looking around, as if to ask, 'Where is everyone?' Sensing their thoughts Dumbledore stood up. "If you'd all stand back by the doors…" they quickly obeyed, wondering what was going to happen. With a wave of his wand, the tables move together and with a flash of purple light they became one in the center of the room. "Here we go!" the Headmaster cried as the teachers were suddenly lifted up into the air and flown over to the table. "Care to join us?" He asked, and slowly, as though afraid their professors would bite, the ten or so students sat down, leaving a few empty seats as though to for a line between the teachers and themselves. Lily sat stiffly in an open seat, at the edge of the students half, only two seats separating her from her headmaster.
He watched her pick at her food for a while, but when she suddenly snatched an apple and made to stand up he said, "Leaving so soon? You've barely had anything! You really should try this ham, it's quite delicious if you ask me."
So, being a polite person, Lily sat back down and pulled a slice of the ham onto her plate and began cutting it into bite size pieces. Then she reached for her transfiguration book. But Dumbledore didn't get turned away that quickly. "Ah, you like Transfiguration?"
She nodded quietly and set her book back onto her lap, he was obviously wanting to talk. "Yes, but I don't quite get why animagus's have to register, Professor McGonagal was talking about that in class the day before. I mean, what if another animal had the same, or very similar markings? With just a worded description you could go through tons of frogs before you found Aaron Sphinxworth! And can't the wizards at the Ministry track wizards? If so why do they need a description anyway? But people wouldn't overlook big things like that I'm sure. It's stupid. I'm sure I just wasn't paying enough attention." Lily looked down, embarrassed to be talking to her headmaster, who had taught Transfiguration before, in such a complaining way.
But he was smiling, and said "No, you heard correctly, I doubt Professor McGonagal went that into detail about becoming animargi or the rules about becoming or being and animargi, that is usually saved for sixth or seventh years. I completely understand what you're saying. It would seem quite silly of them to need descriptions for the animargi because they can track magic, and becoming an animal is magic. But once they've transformed, if the animagi doesn't do magic, they can't be tracked until they transform back, because they weren't doing magic. It's true that the knowing their special markings doesn't always help, but it does limit the number of possible animals they are." Lily looked up.
"Yeah, that makes sense," she said slowly. "And what's the trick to turning a twig into a stick bug?" he laughed and started explaining. He'd gotten her to come out of her shell, if only for a moment.
The next day, when Lily woke up to find her dormitory empty her first thought was 'Oh my gosh! I'm late for class!" then she remembered that it was Christmas break, and all the other girls away doing something with friends or family. She might've slept in, but since she'd nearly scared herself to death thinking she was late, she felt wide awake. So instead, she grabbed her book bag and ice skates and headed down to breakfast, this time stopping to chat with Remus before heading up to the rink. This time was no better than last though. In fact with all the bruises from the day before, it seemed to be worse. She did manage to get around the rink twice again without falling however.
Then, once she was worn out and had taken a shower and changed back into her jeans and a tank, she sat down in back of the room and worked on her home work, finishing her History of Magic essay and starting on her Transfiguration work before dinner rolled around. Deciding that since she'd already skipped lunch and didn't want to sit by Dumbledore again she'd better be on time she left five minutes early. Yet., her foot got trapped in a stair and she had to wait for Filtch to walk by before she got free. Though Filtch wasn't a kind man, he did have his job on the line, and since he'd already given out four detentions that day he knew he had to do something 'nice' to counter it. So, he helped her out. Still, Lily was again late and again got the last available seat, yet again beside the headmaster.
"I didn't see you at lunch Mrs. Evans." he remarked lightly.
"You count?"
"Well, with only 11 students it's hard not to notice when one is missing."
Lily had to agree with that. "I was working on my History of Magic essay."
"Already working on homework? Impressive. I myself, never seemed to get around to things until a few hours before they were due. I wasn't a very well organized student."
Lily laughed. The thought of the headmaster hurriedly scribbling things down at 2 or 3 o' clock in the morning was funny. But mostly because she couldn't imagine him doing anything in a frantic manner, and she couldn't seem to get rid of his long white beard in her mental image of him…
"I looked up how the ministry tracks people and found that they can't tell if a student does magic in a magical house hold! I wish I had magical parents!" This time Dumbledore laughed,
"You certainly do your research."
"Is- is that bad?" asked Lily suddenly feeling like 'know-it-all' was stamped on her forehead. Talking to the Headmaster definitely wasn't one of her strong points.
"Of course not! What teacher would ever say extra research was bad?"
That was how she passed her days. The first half or more was spent at the rink, the rest in the library or at a meal, where she always seemed to have to sit by the headmaster, but she was starting to feel more and more comfortable around him. What was left of the day was usually spent doing whatever she felt like.
Christmas day found Lily fast asleep in her four poster bed with the hangings drawn. So as the morning sun got brighter Lily slept on unaware. Eventually, around nine o'clock, she awoke, yet it was a awhile before she noticed the presents on her bed and remembered what day it was. At the foot of her bed sat four presents. A very small one from Jackie, her once-best-friend. One shaped like a book from her mum, a kind of funny shaped one from Dad and another small box from Petunia. In Jackie's were hand-made, green beaded earrings, but it was more of one of those gifts that you HAD to give someone rather than WANTED to give someone. The two of them had grown very apart since Lily mysteriously went off to this boarding school without telling Jackie and her parents wouldn't give Jackie the address to it… From Mum was a diary (P.S.: You haven't written to me all week!) from Dad was a big box of chocolates and from Petunia was a small ankle bracelet with a miniature pair of ice skates dangling from it. Only Petunia knew what was going on. Smiling Lily set about writing thank-you letters.
Later that night, with all her homework done, her presents put away and thank you letters sent, she sat munching on her chocolates by the fire, sketching out random things that came to mind. When she flipped back in her sketchbook to see what she'd done, she found that they were all of ice skating.
Thanks for reading, please review!