It's been so long! Ten minutes! WOW!
I seriously have nothing to say, so...
Disclaimer: I'm running out of good ways to say I don't own Harry Potter or anything recognizable.
Chapter 9: Lily
Hurrying to catch up with Thorn and Regall, Lily shoved her History of Magic textbook back into her bag. If only she could get to them before he popped up-
"Not so fast, Evans," Silently swearing, Lily glared at the smirking black haired boy blocking her way.
"What do you want, Potter?" At first, James seemed a little surprised at the venom in her voice, but quickly dismissed it and smiled even wider, to Lily's annoyance.
"Just wondering if maybe you wanted to, umm, uhh-" James - no - Potter went a deep cherry red, then hurried away. Lily stared after him, mystified. Suddenly, she was shoved aside by none other than Black, Pettigrew, and Remus, the only one of Potter's gang that Lily liked. Black sniggered at the sight of Potter disappearing down the hallway.
"What did you do now, Evans?" He sneered. Lily straightened defiantly.
"I didn't do anything!" she replied angrily. "He was the one who came up to me and asked me if I maybe 'wanted to, umm, uh'!" Black's face became gleeful, as did Pettigrew's. Even Remus's face looked a little interested.
"I didn't think he'd have the guts to do it!" Black crowed.
"Well, by the sounds of it, he didn't." Remus said, and took off down the hallway after his friend. Sirius and Pettigrew followed, leaving Lily even more mystified as she joined Thorn and Regall.
"What was that about, Lily?" Regall asked curiously. Lily shook her head.
"I really honestly don't know," she answered. Wanting to change the subject, she asked Thorn what they had next.
"Potions with the Slytherins," Thorn groaned. "Great. Now we have to deal with that greasy slimeball, Snivellus Snape." Lily frowned at her.
"Sev is my friend!" Lily quickly defended him. The others looked at her incredulously.
"Lil, do you think you'll survive your life with a Slytherin? At least James Potter is a Gryffindor! Quite admirable, don't you think?" Lily pretended to barf.
"I can't believe you'd say that! Anyway, you don't know that much about Se-"
Thorn interrupted Lily. "Why do we need to know him? Pretty much every Slytherin turns out the same. Dark. Evil." She lowered her voice. "Many end up in Azkaban." Regall looked like she agreed with Thorn, even though she wasn't arguing.
"Sev's different you guys! I promise!" Lily was beginning to feel desperate.
"First of all, stop calling him Sev. Second, we're going to be late to class if we stand here bickering!" Regall quickly stopped the argument before it got any worse. Lily just glared at them and speed walked the rest of the way to the dungeon for Potions.
"Gather round, class, gather round!" The enthusiastic Professor Slughorn called to his class. Lily pointedly walked away from Thorn and Regall to Sev, who acknowledged her with a smile."Today, we're going to learn about some special substances, and we'll end with starting to brew a potion for curing headaches!." He held up a gold liquid splashing of its own accord in its flask. "Does anyone know what this is?"
Lily shyly raised her hand. She remembered reading about this in a book she bought in Diagon Alley.
"Hmm, let's see... Miss Evans, in the back?" The Professor picked her out.
"It's called Felix Felicis, sir. Liquid Luck, more commonly."
The Professor clapped his hands. "Bravo, Miss Evans, bravo! That's exactly correct! Take 5 points for Gryffindor! I wonder how a first-year Muggle Born might have known that?" He saw the look on Lily's face. "Oh, I didn't mean anything against muggle-borns!"
"I read a book I got in Diagon Alley," she said, feeling her face turn almost as red as Potter's. Slughorn smiled jovially at her.
"Well, seems like we have quite the little bookworm here!" Lily blushed again and Sev patted her on the back appreciatively as the professor turned to address the rest of the class. "So, that is Felix Felicis, which brings luck to the drinker. Does anyone here know its properties?" Professor Slughorn had an amused expression as Lily's hand crept into the air again. "Yes, Miss Evans?"
"It makes you lucky!" An excited murmuring spread among the students as Slughorn nodded to Lily and continued his speech. "Yes, indeed, Felix Felicis does make you lucky, but it is very hard to brew and can have horrible effects if you get it wrong. Therefore, we will not be making it today." He placed the vial back on his desk, accepting the disappointed groans good-naturally. "Now, this one here," Slughorn indicated a dark, shadowy potion swirling slowly around in its cauldron. "This is the Draught of Living Death. Does anybody know what it does?" He looked around at the students, a smile playing on his lips. "Anybody besides Miss Evans?" Embarrassed, Lily put her hand down and listened as Skye timidly answered the question. "Good, very good, Miss Delaney. This is a dangerous potion, and like Felix Felicis, can be disastrous if you brew it wrong. And this one…"
When Slughorn was done telling them about all the potions, he sent them all back to their tables and set them to brewing the Headache Cure for the prize of a Potions homework pass. Lily eagerly followed Sev until she saw that he had sat down at a full table. Disappointed, she stiffly sat down with Thorn, Regall, and Skye and retrieved her cauldron. Opening her Potions book, Lily got out her ingredients and began to make her potion.
After adding the valerian root and a couple drops of hallbrand essence, Lily finally looked up from her potion. Regall was doing fairly well, and even though her potion was a bit on the blue side instead of the deep purple it was supposed to be, they still had couple minutes left to adjust it. Skye was also doing very well, about as good as Lily herself. Thorn, however, was clearly struggling. Her potion was lime green, and nothing Thorn did seemed to help. The potion was emitting a light fog, enveloping a frantic Thorn in its steamy vapor.
Taking pity on her, Lily quickly leaned over and added a single leaf of mortwig. Immediately, the potion turned a dark mauve. Thorn exhaled in relief.
"Thank you so much Lily! I'm awfulat potions!" She said exhaustively, slumping forward with her head on the table. Lily nodded as Slughorn called, "Tiiiiiiime's UP!" Regall quickly added a last ingredient and then the room was still. Lily fidgeted nervously as Slughorn came nearer, inspecting everyone's potion and murmuring comments to the students under his breath. After what seemed like a lifetime, Slughorn reached their table.
He looked extremely pleased with Regall's potion, sniffed delicately at Thorn's potion and hurried away, and beamed and patted Skye on the shoulder. Lily was now shaking with anticipation as the professor came to her. Hopefully her potion would be good enough…
"Well, well, well!" Slughorn boomed. "It seems like we have a natural!" Lily could hardly believe her ears as Slughorn announced that she and Skye would both get a homework pass. Glancing across the room at Sev, she saw that he was beaming as much as Slughorn and clapping for her. Thorn was wrong. She had to be. Sev was her first and best friend, and on top of that was the one who had introduced her to this whole wizarding world.
She wouldn't let anybody bully Sev. And on top of that, she would never become one of those stuck-up Gryffindors like Thorn or Regall who scorned Slytherins just because of their house. It wasn't his fault that he had the qualities of Slytherin house any more than it was Remus Lupin's fault that he was friends with an arrogant toerag like James Potter.
The bell rang, bringing Lily back to earth. Putting her book back into her bag, she made sure that Thorn and Regall were on either side of her before she left the classroom. Potter never bothered her when they were around.
Skye had dropped back to walk with Black and his friends. Lily didn't understand how Skye was related to someone like Black. They were nothing alike! But right now, Skye's head was bent, listening and laughing at something that Remus was whispering. The other guys laughed, too, except for Potter. Lily guessed that they were talking about the little incident before Potions and glanced at Potter, wondering if he felt embarrassed.
Suddenly, his head lifted and his eyes met hers. Lily noticed unhelpfully that they were a rather nice shade of hazel, before he smiled and winked at her. Then she huffily turned her back and hurried off with Thorn and Regall, not seeing the look of hurt on his face.
Professor McGonagall's classroom had that annoying, strict don't-do-anything-wrong-or -you'll-regret-it air the moment Lily stepped in. First-year Hufflepuffs and Gryffindors were sitting down at the perfectly straight lines of desks stretching down the classroom, with the professor's big desk up at the front.
Professor McGonagall was not there yet, which was good because Potter and Black were trying to figure out a way to put a magical tack on the professor's seat without getting detention. Hurrying to the other side of the classroom, Lily sat down at an empty desk and glanced anxiously at the doorway, hoping that the professor would get here soon. She didn't like the look on Potter's face one bit.
The bell rang. Lily stared at the doorway. No McGonagall. A minute passed. No McGonagall. Two minutes. No McGonagall.
Again, Lily glanced at the boys. They were cackling silently as they maneuvered their magical thumbtack onto McGonagall's seat. As soon as the tack touched the cushion, an explosion seemed to take place in the room.
Plaster rained down on the students as Lily scrambled out from beneath her desk and peered towards Potter and Black.
Professor McGonagall was standing behind them, a grim look on her face. She was holding both boys by their shirt collars, making them look like puppies that had peed on the floor again.
"Do you honestly think that you could get away with something like that in my classroom?" she snapped at them. Hurriedly, they shook their heads. Lily was pleased to see that Potter looked much less cocky. Professor McGonagall released them and marched up to her desk, muttering 'Reparo' as she went, fixing the ceiling and desks with a wave of her wand. "Good," she said briskly, "Then I hope that you are not surprised that I am giving you each a detention." Ignoring their whines, she turned to the rest of the class.
"Anyway, welcome to Transfiguration. I hope that you have learned that there will be absolutely no trouble-making in my class." Everyone turned to look at Potter and Black. "Transfiguration is a complex art, which needs much concentration and will require your utmost attention." These last words were directed at one of the Hufflepuffs, whose name was Gilderoy Lockhart if Lily remembered correctly. Flashing a brilliant smile at the professor, he bowed and said,
"Forgive me for interrupting your class, Professor. I was just showing these lovely ladies how to properly use a Switching Sp-" Professor McGonagall waved her wand dismissively and levitated a stunned Lockhart back to his desk.
"That will do, thank you Mr. Lockhart. So, today we are indeed going to begin to administer Switching Spells. Miss Finnegan, please come up here and hand out these erasers. We will be practicing Switching them with your partner's erasers. You may practice in pairs. The incantation is Quae Instigat, now off you go!"
A comfortable buzz of conversation filled the room as people got into pairs. Thorn and Regall were again together, so Lily paired up with Skye. Once Scarlett Finnegan had passed out the erasers, Skye tried to switch her eraser with Lily's and ended up transplanting her finger. Lily gasped at the sight of the finger lying on the desktop. Skye had fallen off her chair. Lily could hear her moaning from the floor:
"Oh, the agony! ARGGGGGG-"
"Is everything alright over here?" Suddenly, Professor McGonagall stood behind them. Lily pointed wordlessly at the finger on the desk. Professor McGonagall narrowed her eyes. "Are you done messing around, Miss Delaney?" Skye popped out from under the desk.
"Never better," she chirped. Professor McGonagall gave her a frown and swept off. Sheepishly, Skye showed Lily her not-missing finger and retrieved the fake finger from the desktop with a mischievous smile. "Sirius gave it to me," she explained. Lily rolled her eyes and continued trying to do a Switching Spell.
Around the classroom, she heard other students having trouble even pronouncing the incantation properly. Rounds of "Quae Instigat" sounded like "Qee Insta". A second later, a little jet of white light was blown from the wand, often hitting something and breaking it. Or hitting the partner's face and making them bleed.
Thorn and Regall were pretty much the only people doing the right thing. Thorn was clearly a natural, and Regall wasn't too bad herself. Since they had accomplished merely Switching each other's erasers, they were now enjoying Switching their erasers with Lockhart's and a pretty Hufflepuff named Paige Weaver, whom Lockhart was flirting with. Lily could see that Thorn and Regall were enjoying themselves immensely, since Lockhart(who was a bit dim)had no idea where all his erasers were going.
After watching the most students fail miserably, Professor McGonagall was delighted to see that Lily and Skye had managed to do it: "Good job, 10 points to Gryffindor!" Lily sighed. Transfiguration did not come as naturally to her as Potions. She would have to work harder on it.
Sneaking a glance over to Potter and Remus, she was unsatisfied to see that Potter had successfully Switched his eraser and was making it zoom around and tap Pettigrew on the shoulder. Laughing, he looked up and caught Lily's gaze. For a split-second, Lily saw him as his friends did - laughing and cheerful and certainly not arrogant. This was James, not Potter. There was a difference. But then the next second, he became the same old annoying, self-centered, conceited Potter. Lily hurriedly looked away. She didn't want him to think that she had been staring at him. Thankfully, Professor McGonagall stood up behind her desk.
"Well, that was very good for a first try. We'll work on it for a little while. For your homework I want you all to practice the Switching Spell and write eight inches on what Miranda Goshawk has to say about the Switching Spell. Next week we'll start learning how to transfigure a match to a needle! Potter and Black, I want to see you after the bell rings to discuss your detention. The rest of you, pack up!"
There was a lot of chattering as everyone got their stuff together. When the bell rang, Lily ran to walk with Thorn and Regall to the Great Hall.
"What a great lesson!" enthused Thorn. "Finally, I get to practice my Transfiguration stuff on someone that isn't Jade!" Regall joined in and the two talked all the way to the Great Hall, with Lily occasionally adding in a "yeah" or a "mmm-hmm". Her mind wasn't actually on the conversation at all.
Instead it was on a certain someone who had unruly black hair and a smile to light up her world.
Yes I know some of you might be thinking, 'What? Lily isn't supposed to like James yet! She hates him right now'
Well, I know. That will be fixed, but I think James would probably have had a teeny crush on her. Like, super tiny. So, the next few chapters will show bits of her hating James and James fawning over her. (Wait isn't a fawn a baby deer? HOLY PRONGS BATMAN!) sorry, had too.
REVIEW PWEASE! I COMMAND IT! AND I HAVE COOKIES!
(See, this is when people really start to realize that I truly have the maturity of a 2 year old when I'm tired.)
- Hogwartsy9sy14sy! and the crazy friends. XD XD XD XD (I think I might've also had too much sugar. teehee!)
