Lily blinked once, twice, three times. She read the letter over again, not so sure if she had read correctly. Everyone knew about Voldemort and the Death Eaters, but she hadn't realised quite how far the Dark Lord's influence reached, until now that is. Wow, Lily thought. Has this mania really gained so much momentum? We know who Voldemort is, but is he really so influential? Just how many followers does this lunatic have?
Now Lily wished she had never taken this letter from the Great Hall, not if it meant hearing more about this stupid Lord Voldemort. Lily wondered now if this was the beginning of what appeared to be a wave of terror for muggleborns everywhere. And who said that her family wouldn't be next? The thought hit Lily like a bag of bricks over the head. Oh, God, could her family possibly be in danger? What if they killed her parents and her sister? Sure, Petunia treated her like dirt, but she still loved her sister.
"Lily?" a tentative voice inquired. Lily gasped and whirled around to see none other than James standing by the portrait hole, stuffing the letter into her robes quickly.
"What?" she barked. James's eyes widened in surprise at her harsh tone.
"Sirius is making the announcement soon," he replied. After a moment he added, "You looked really upset when you were reading that note." Lily looked into his eyes, and she knew she had nothing to hide from him. She sighed, pulling out the now slightly ripped letter and handing it to James.
"McGonagall handed it to a Hufflepuff girl at lunch," she explained, leaning up against the wall and placing a hand over her chest; the information had both shocked and disturbed her mind very much. James's eyes widened even more when he read the letter. His mouth worked as he looked from Lily to the letter and back to Lily.
"You mean-Voldemort, he-he..." James's words faded away in disbelief.
"Well, it's not as if Hogwarts decided to do this just for laughs," Lily snapped. She sighed, closing her eyes and leaning her head against the wall. She slid down so that she was sitting on the floor.
"But has it really gotten to this point that people at Hogwarts are losing family?" James wanted to know, frowning at the letter.
"Who says this isn't just the beginning?" Lily wanted to know. "What if this is just a prelude? Anybody could be next. Mary's family is muggleborn." She closed her eyes, taking a deep breath. "I'm a muggleborn." She couldn't see him, but she heard James sit down next to her on the stone floor. Then, she felt a pair of hands cup her cheeks and turn her head to the side. Opening her eyes, she looked at James, his expression unusually serious.
"Lily, listen to me," he said softly as they looked directly into each other's eyes. "I'm telling you now that nothing will happen to you, or your family. Maybe more people will get hurt or die, but you won't be one of them. You don't need to worry because you are smart, beautiful, wonderful, and strong, and I know that nothing will ever bring you down. You don't need to be scared of Death Eaters or Voldemort because they will never touch you. I'll die before I let them anywhere near you." James's words touched Lily more than anything she had ever been told in her life. When was the last time anyone had told her she was beautiful? Had anyone ever said that they would die for her before? Lily felt sudden warmth spread through her entire body, from her cheeks outward. Before she knew what she was doing, she had wrapped her arms around James and was hugging him as if her life depended on it. She sighed with relief as James hugged her back, and she could feel the truth in James's words. Right here she felt protected, safe, like nothing could ever happen to her. After a while (or maybe a few seconds), they let go of each other and stood up.
"Sirius was getting ready to make the announcement when I came out here," James told Lily. "Hope we haven' missed it."
"Singing bees," Lily said to the Fat Lady, the portrait swung open, and they climbed in. They saw Sirius standing on a table, shaking a bottle of Butterbeer and talking to all the students standing in the common room. Lily watched as Dorcas and Marlene floated bottles of Butterbeer above the crowd of Gryffindors. She and James walked over to the table on which Sirius was standing to receive bottles from Alice and Frank.
"What took you two so long? Were you snogging?" Alice demanded.
"No, we were not snogging," Lily retorted as she began to shake her bottle; it was a Gryffindor house party custom to burst the caps off their Butterbeers after shaking them. Before they could be burst, however, someone had to stand up on a table and tell of the occasion. Lily herself had done so last year when Gryffindor had won the House Cup. She remembered how much fun it had been to stand up and look out over the heads of at least two hundred students and shout about how Gryffindor was the best.
Now she listened as Sirius said, "But tonight it's really about two people here tonight. They started dating a few years ago, and they were the couple Andy caught snogging by the lake. In case you all don't remember..." Sirius pulled out a large photo of Alice and Frank kissing rather passionately by the lake. The common room roared with laughter as Alice blushed furiously, burying her face in her hands as Frank's expression turned murderous.
"Oi!" he shouted, attempting to grab the photo away from Sirius, but he tucked it under his shirt quickly.
"Anyways," Sirius called out, though he really meant 'Shut up and listen to me now.' "Well, the reason they are being mentioned tonight is because something rather interesting has happened. No, Alice is not pregnant." More laughs and chuckles. "But if things work out as planned, she will be in a few years, because Frank and Alice are getting married!" At this, the whole common room erupted in deafening cheers and roars as Sirius popped the cap of his Butterbeer. Everyone popped the caps of their bottles, and Butterbeer flew up at the ceiling. Lily and Alice screamed and laughed as their hair got soaked in the drink. Lily was soon pushed out of the way as several girls ran up to congratulate Alice. Soon it was impossible to even see Alice since so many girls were surrounding her. Several people around Lily were still cheering and shouting, and most of the younger students had rushed to the food table where all the snacks were.
"There won't be any sight of Alice for a while, will there?" Jenna stood next to Lily in the middle of the common room. Lily laughed slightly.
"You're right about that," she agreed, taking a sip from her bottle. "Well, I don't really blame them. We all went mad when Alice told us the news."
"We're Gryffindors for a reason," Jenna said, pale green eyes dancing. "That's just the way we are." Lily nodded, looking back over at where Alice should've been; she was still not able to be seen.
"Hi people." Mary walked up to the other two girls. "I just got my foot stepped on. It hurts a lot."
"Does your face hurt too?" Sirius asked as he passed by with a plate full of brownies. Lily grabbed a brownie from his plate and threw it at him. He yelped as it hit him on the arm, almost dropping the plate of food.
"Oi! You've just wasted a perfectly good brownie! Don't you know that there are children in Ethiopia and Mozambique that don't even eat some days?" he demanded.
"Then why aren't you in Africa feeding them?" Jenna shot back.
"I'm just surprised you knew how to say Mozambique," Lily told him.
"Hell, I'm surprised I knew how to say it," Sirius laughed, before turning to greet a rather curvy girl with light brown hair. The three girls exchanged glances before laughing.
"He'll never change, will he?" Mary asked.
"It would be boring here if he did," Lily pointed out. "He wouldn't be a proper Marauder if he changed."
"Anyways, Alice says you're her maid of honour," Mary commented. Lily smiled at this.
"Yes, she asked me a few days ago. She also said you two would be bridesmaids."
"Yes, we're so excited. Alice's family love huge blow-out events, so it's going to be a wedding to remember, especially with the Marauders as ushers," Jenna said. Lily knew this very well; Alice had been presented at a debutante ball last summer, and Alice's jewellery had outshined that of every single debutante by far. Lily recalled the silver and diamond waterfall necklace Alice had worn along with diamond studs and an emerald ring the size of Lily's thumbnail. It was one of the only times she had ever been truly jealous of Alice.
"Yeah, Alice will have a great wedding," Lily agreed. "She says the lot of us will meet sometime in a few weeks to start the planning, once she and Frank pick an official date."
"She'd better get on that soon," Mary piped in. "Summer is wedding season, and officiates are hard to catch at the time you really want during wedding season. It's always easier to plan a winter wedding. At least I think it is."
"I'd rather have a spring or summer wedding," Lily said.
"Me too," Jenna agreed. "Anyways, at least Alice's will be in the summer."
"She knows it will be before September of next year," Lily told them. "That's for certain."
"Firewhiskey all around!" someone shouted. Lily frowned at this; she had watched everything come into the common room just fifteen minutes ago. How on earth did the alcohol get in?
"The Marauders," she growled. "I swear, if Sirius throws up on me ever again, I'll shoot him with a rusty harpoon."
"Oh well," Mary sighed. "They've been doing this since they were fourteen. Old habits die hard."
"But getting smashed 'till you pass out is not only stupid but dangerous," Lily protested.
"We're not saying we agree with it," Jenna told her. "What we're saying is that we've learned to co-exist." Lily sighed sharply. She knew exactly how things would turn out with alcohol present. The boys would see who could drink so many bottles in so much amount of time, a bunch of students would get roaring drunk, Sirius would grab a random girl and lead her out of the common room to go do God knows what, several of the students would have to be carried to their dorms, and several guys would flirt with her; James would always be one of them.
Great, she thought, still unable to spot Alice. I'll have at least two smashed Marauders on my hands, and a lot of stupefying when this is all over. She remembered that the Heads last year had used stupefy to handle the uncontrollable inebriated at the first house party that year, not the one where McGonagall stormed in wearing her nightclothes. Lily would feel bad if she had to do that, but if it got to that point then she would.
At least they're all funny drunks, she thought spotting Marlene. They're not violent or anything dangerous. Lily walked towards Marlene, who was picking up a different bottle from the food table.
"Hey, how's everything?" Lily asked her. Marlene shrugged, taking a swig from the bottle; it wasn't Butterbeer.
"Alright. Dorcas is talking with some random sixth-year boy, and Alice is swamped," Marlene replied. She held the bottle out to Lily. "Drink?"
"You know I don't drink," the redhead said. "But I will get some brownies."
"Hope they're not spiked," Marlene remarked as Lily grabbed the largest brownie she could see near the food table.
"Don't even say that," Lily ordered. There was a boom as streaks of red and gold fireworks zoomed around the common room. The two laughed as the noisy room got even noisier with cheers and shouts. The sound of glass hitting walls reached Lily's ears.
"It's going to be a long night," she sighed, hoping no one would cut themselves on the broken shards.
"Boo!" A pair of hands grabbed Lily's shoulders as Lily herself shrieked. She turned to see a giggling Alice, and smiled slightly.
"You're finally free," Marlene observed.
"I know. I feel so happy right now," Alice remarked.
"You're getting married. Why shouldn't you be?" Dorcas wanted to know, walking up to the group of girls.
"Have you talked to that Jacobson guy yet?" Lily wanted to know.
"I sent him an owl yesterday, so I'm waiting for his reply," Alice answered. A bottle flew over the girls' heads to crash into the opposite wall.
This is going to be a very long night.