I realized that Lily must have at least made plans for some sort of profession before marrigage and Harry and all. And by fifth year, the war would be bad enough and I think she'd be passionate enough about the cause to realize that maybe, she could make a difference.
Please help me:
spring 1976
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Professor McGonagall smiles at Lily as she enters her office for fifth year career counseling.
"Good afternoon, Ms. Evans," she says, gesturing to the chair on the other side of the desk. "How are you today?"
"Fine, thanks," Lily replies politely. "How are you?"
McGonagall nods. "Good," she replies, then gets down to business. "Have you given any thought to what you want to do after Hogwarts?"
"Mm . . ." Lily purses her lips. "Sort of. I know I want to help with—" Embarrassed, she looks down at her lap. "Help with the war somehow."
McGonagall looks intensely proud at that moment, but remains offhand in speech. "As an Auror? Or something more behind the scenes?"
"See, that's what I'm not sure of," Lily says, frowning. "I don't think I could be an Auror. Not a really good one, anyway. I'm not that great at Defense Against the Dark Arts, and duels . . . make me nervous."
"So not an Auror then." McGonagall replies decisively. "Some sort of spell breaker or developer?"
"But then I'd be utterly useless to the actual battles," Lily points out. When her friends are out there fighting, she wants to be there with them. "I was thinking, maybe I'd like to learn healing."
"Ah." Lily doesn't think she's ever seen her teacher look more delighted. "You have the grades for it," McGonagall tells her, flipping through several transcripts. "Make sure to keep up in Charms and Herbology especially, although Defense and Transfiguration will both be vital to individual cases you might see at Saint Mungo's."
"What if . . ." Lily is tentative, feeling bad for changing all of her teacher's ideas around. "What if I learned to be a sort of battlefield healer? Like, quick spells to work as counter curses, heal wounds, that kind of thing. And then after He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, maybe then I could work more at the hospital and learn that healing too."
"That sounds like a wonderful plan, Ms. Evans." McGonagall smiles warmly at her. "I'll see what I can do about talking to some of my ex students who've gone onto the healing fields; maybe there's an internship somewhere you could do. One of my favorite students, a young man named Benjy Fenwick, works in the Spell Damage section at Saint Mungo's. Do you want me to talk to him?"
Lily grins. "Please, help me any way you can. That sounds fantastic."
"Alright; I'll see what I can do." McGonagall stands up and walks Lily out. "Thanks for your time, Ms. Evans."
"Thank you." And Lily walks out, not just Lily Evans, but Lily almost the Healer.
