James was out every night with Sirius to explore the grounds and the castle of Hogwarts when they were not in detention. They tried to be a bit more careful and active in class, since they enjoyed sneaking around to discover the castle. It had so many secrets, it was almost impossible to remember them. "SST, be quiet!" James hissed to his friend. They were out way after curfew and they were sneaking around the dungeons. "What?" Sirius mouthed to James. "I hear something or someone!" James whispered as quietly as he could. Sirius nodded. There was that noise again! And it was coming closer this time. "Footsteps!" Sirius whispered and pushed James forward towards a statue. They hid behind it and hold their breath.
"I swear that I heard something over here." It were the prefects of the Slytherin House. James only knew the name of the boy, it was Lucius Malfoy. He was a pain in the ass of anyone who was not in his house. It was almost like if he was trying to catch you on a mistake so he could give you detention. But all the Slytherins were safe. They even got all the stuff that he seized from all the other students. Other prefects complained to their head of the houses but it could not bother. Malfoy would just deny everything when Slughorn asked about it and Slughorn would believe him on his word. And now they probably did their rounds and they were pretty close to discovering James and Sirius.
James held his breath. Dammit, he thought. If we get discovered he will make sure that we will have at least a week of detention and a lot of points taken from their house. They were caught way past curfew, creeping around and with no intention getting back anytime soon. The Gryffindor tower was all the way up on the other side of the castle. Sirius mouthed something to James, but it was too dark for James to read his lips. He shook his head and placed his finger on his mouth. "Lucius, maybe it was Slughorn getting back to his office?" The Head Girl said. "He is already asleep since 10, Cynthia. You know he has the same schedule every day. No, there were students here. And they should be close, probably hiding somewhere." He started looking in empty classrooms and was getting awfully close to the statue. "And what if they are Slytherin students?" Cynthia asked. "Then they would not be hiding themselves. They know that we would never give them detention or something like that. No, whoever is here is not supposed to be here and now they are hiding." Lucius was just a few steps away from the statue. James tried so hard not to make a single sound and he saw that Sirius was having the same idea. "Lucius, please I am done here. It is late and I want to go to bed. We were not even supposed to do round tonight, we just covered for the prefects. Can you please let it go? I think Narcissa is still waiting for you." Lucius stood still for a moment looking at the statue. "I guess you are right. We will return to the common room then." Both of the prefects turned around and walked out of the hall.
James and Sirius kept quiet for several minutes and then Sirius whispered: "Do you think they are really gone? I am not looking forward in running into them while they wait for us." James shrugged. "Let's wait a couple more minutes and then leave." Sirius nodded and leaned his head against the wall. James closed his eyes and tried to focus on any sounds that were odd. After a few minutes he gave Sirius a nudge and whispered: "Are you ready?" Sirius nodded. The two of them sneaked away from the castle and were trying to be as quiet as possible. Luckily it seemed that Lucius and Cynthia indeed returned to the dungeons. Sirius and James made it back to the portrait hole. "May I ask where the two of you were, this time at night?" The Fat Lady asked. "You may, but I choose not to answer that. And now I would like to go back to bed. Dragon skin." Sirius said the password. The Fat Lady sighed and swung open. James climbed in and they walked up the stairs to the dorm. "Well mate that was quite a night." Sirius said. "Tomorrow evening again?" James laughed. "Mate, we were so close to being caught, but that adrenaline rush! This was amazing! Let's skip the dungeons tomorrow. I rather not walk into a group of Slytherins that late in the evening." Sirius laughed. "I would not mind a little duel of my own, but okay. We will go somewhere else then." James hit Sirius on the back. "Sleep tight, mate." Sirius replied the same.
The following two night were again successful for James and Sirius. But on their third night out they were caught by the Head Boy and Girl of the Hufflepuffs. "What is it with you students and being out of bed after curfew? We just found two Ravenclaws messing around in an empty classroom and now two first years, for Merlin's sake. At least the Ravenclaws were third years. I will have to report this to professor McGonagall. She will see that you will get a fitting punishment. So let's go to her office, right now." James and Sirius walked with the girl to the office of McGonagall. "At least you are doing your job." Sirius complimented the girl. He smiled at her and whipped his hair out of his face. She looked at him a little confused. "Yeah, I suppose so." She said. "Did you also bring the Ravenclaws to the head of their house?" Sirius asked. "Of course. The head of the houses knows what to do best." Sirius nodded. "Of course, that is normal. And they were messing around with each other. Tsk, what a situation." The girl smiled a bit. "You should have seen the faces when we walked in on them. So shocked, I felt a bit bad that we did that to them. But maybe this time she will finally learn now what it is like to be on the other end of the gossip. Since she always …" But then the girl stopped talking. Clearly she almost said something that could give away the identity of the girl in question. "I hope she has never targeted you with this gossip." Sirius said in shock. James had no idea why Sirius cared so much about this Ravenclaw girl. He was just wondering how much detention he would get and how many points were going to be deducted by McGonagall. "Not me in particular. But she questioned the integrity of Hufflepuff prefects."
James saw that the Head Girl was getting worked up again just thinking about it. "She did not!" Sirius gasped. "It is common knowledge that you Hufflepuffs are the most loyal of all of us. Even more than Gryffindor I have to say." The girl blushed a bit. "Even now you are doing the right thing!" Sirius said. "You bring us to our head of the house for our punishment, while we regret so much even being out this time of night." The girl stopped. "You do? Because it seems like you are quite relaxed." Sirius gave James a nudge. "No we really do. We never did this before and we always hear others about the castle at night. It was supposed to be really pretty and magical, but this was just not worth it all." The Prefect looked at them. "Well I suppose if you promise me that you will not do it again, I can maybe escort you back to your common room instead of professor McGonagall." Sirius nodded. "Of course we can promise that! And whoever said that the Prefects of Hufflepuff are not integer is just stupid." The girl turned around to walk to the tower of Gryffindor. When they were at the portrait of the Fat Lady she said one last thing. "I know you said all that to get out of detention. But it is okay, I do not mind. I already send two people to detention today and I was not feeling sending four people. Stupid Bertha should just stop disobeying the rules for once. It would get her out of so much trouble. Well, I hope you might do the right thing. Good night then." Sirius and James wished her a good night as well.
As soon as they were inside they high fived each other. "Mate, that was amazing! You totally got us out of detention!" James said to his friend. "Oi, yeah. It is fine, thank Merlin she agreed. If she would have caught us first instead of those Ravenclaws, we would definitely be in trouble." James nodded. "Let's go get some sleep." They went to the dorms and somehow it was silently decided not to go out the upcoming nights. Instead they played some games with Peter and Remus, doing homework and catching up on some sleep.
Lily loved Hogwarts in the spring. What an amazing colors everywhere outside. Everybody was so much happier now that the days were longer and the sun was showing itself again. The lessons were a bit more difficult now that they not completely new to everything anymore. The amount of homework increased more and more, especially around March.
"There are only two months left until the exams." Professor Slughorn said during one of their Potion lessons. "This seems like a lot of time, but do not fool yourself. You should start studying right now if you had not already started. Everything we covered during our first year will come back on the exam. The exam will exist in two parts. The first part is the making of a potion and the second part is the written exam which will test your knowledge. The upcoming two months we will focus on four different potions and one of those will be the one of the exam." Professor Slughorn looked around. "For most of you I am sure this will be easy or at least do-able. Though there are still some students here that could use some extra help or practice. Therefore I would like to offer Monday evenings from 7.30 till 8 in the evening extra classes starting tonight until the Monday before the exams. If you feel like you need some extra classes or help you need you can come to this classroom." He smiled into the class. Lily knew she did not need the extra classes, but she made a mental note to go to them anyway. Maybe she could help somebody with something while she was there.
"Okay and on that note we will start with the first potion. We will start today with the Burning Bitterroot Balm. It is a little bit more difficult than we did so far, but I am sure that you will be able to accomplish a decent version of this potion. You will all need your Bitterroot for this one, your usual supplies and you can find the instruction on page 34 in your book. Please do not hesitate if you have any questions. Good luck!" Professor Slughorn turned around and sat down behind his desk. Lily opened her book and looked at page 34. She knew that the best thing to do now was to just read what the instructions were and what she needed. She read both pages with instruction carefully twice. She knew that the most difficult part would be the amount of stirring and adding the right ingredients at the right time. Her cauldron was on her table and she lit a fire underneath it. Next to her Marlene already added her first two ingredients. Lily looked to her right and saw that Severus was also still reading. He wrote something in his book and then looked up to meet Lily's eyes. He smiled at her. Lily smiled back and gave him a thumbs up. He nodded and mouthed: Same! Lily smiled.
The upcoming 90 minutes Lily added the ingredients on the right time and stirred exactly correct. By the time it was almost time to leave the class Slughorn made a round through the classroom. "Mr. Avery, I think you should restart next week. This Burning Bitterroot Balm is not decent enough to get a passing grade. Please keep in mind that you might need those extra classes on Monday." He walked further and stopped at Severus his cauldron. "Mr. Snape, my oh my. This is very, very, very good. So far you are the furthest of all here. But I still have to check the Gryffindors, though. So hold your horses. But very good, you can be proud." Lily heard some murmuring and snorting behind her. She turned around and saw James and Sirius both eyeing Severus, who just turned red. "Oooh, Snivellus is the best at something suddenly. He probably never heard a compliment before, look at the color of his face." James whispered to Sirius. "He is as red as a tomato. It looks ridiculous on him with that greasy hair of him. And of course Avery needs those extra classes. He is as stupid as the rear end of a donkey." Sirius answered him. James laughed and then looked up to Lily. "What are you looking at, Evans?" He said. "Some pathetic gits who are laughing at somebody else his expense. Could you maybe leave Severus alone? He never did something to you." Lily was tired of James and Sirius picking on Severus the whole time. They did it to every Slytherin, but somehow they always teased Severus more. "Oi Evans, you want to protect your little, greasy boyfriend, don't you?" Sirius teased her. "Shut up, Black. He is not my boyfriend. We are just friends and yes, I protect him for people like you." She turned around again.
"Honestly Lily, I love your quality that you care so much about your friends. But why is that Snape boy even your friend? He hangs out with Avery, Mulciber and all those other weirdos." Marlene asked softly. Lily sighed. She always felt so defensive when her friendship with Severus was the subject of a conversation. "We grew up together you know. He told me I was a witch and helped me out with a lot of things. Honestly, he is not as bad as those other guys. He is very nice, trustworthy and funny." Lily looked down at her potion. It was already the light blue color it should have and she was happy with the result so far. Probably she would be done next class. "Okay, I get it Lils. I just hope he feels the same way about you and not more. Sometimes when I catch him looking at you it seems a bit uneasy. He looks like a hawk eyeing his prey, something like that. There is such intensity." Lily became a little bit uncomfortable with this comment. She knew that Severus was looking at her sometimes. There were so many times that James and Sirius called him out on it and made fun of him. She always said to herself it was because she was the only one he had during their school time in the muggle world. But now he also had other friends and he was still this intense. She just had to forget about it. Everything was just friendly between them.
"Ms. Evans! Look at your potion, my oh my." Professor Slughorn was now at her table and looked into her cauldron. "This is just as good and as far as Mr. Snape his potion. Congratulations. Both of you are ahead of schedule." He smiled at her. Lily felt a jolt going through her body. "Well, you obviously do not need those extra classes." Lily smiled. "Thank you, professor. I might still go though. Maybe I can help somebody." "So kind, so kind. My dearest Lily, you are a delight to teach. But I have to say, I do not know of any Evans that was outstanding in Potions. I heard about an Evans working for the Daily Prophet once. Any chance that is a relative?" Professor Slughorn asked. "That would be impossible I think, professor. Both my parents are muggles and as far as I am concerned so is the rest of my family." Professor Slughorn looked surprised. "Muggles you say! Then the talent all comes from yourself and not because you have someone in your family. Even more impressive, my dear. Mr. and Mrs. Evans could be proud of you. You can tell them that next time you see your parents." "Thank you, professor." At that point she heard some laughter coming from the other side of the classroom. Some boys among which Aubrey, Avery and Rosier were whispering and looked at her. Lily turned red and looked down. Professor Slughorn did not notice them and continued his round. He just pulled his head out of the cauldron of Mary with a disgusting look on his face. "Oi, dung heads!" James yelled behind her. "Did you look into a mirror that you are laughing so hard?" Immediately the Slytherins stopped laughing and looked pissed off at James. "Mr. Potter!" Professor Slughorn said shocked. "Why on earth would you say something like that?" James looked at him. "Well, they are very, very ugly so I would probably do the same thing if I was them. It is quite hard not to laugh when you look like that, right?" Professor Slughorn looked horrified. "Well, that is not nice at all. 10 points from Gryffindor for that comment and disturbing my class. Could you please be quiet now?" James looked with an angry look at the Slytherins who were grinning brightly now.
"Do not worry mate, we will get them." Sirius whispered to him. Lily was a little pleased with herself. She knew that James had done that because they were making fun of her. But still, James was doing the exact same thing. This did not make him a good person all of the sudden. He picked on other stuff then heritage. "Okay, listen everyone! The class is over. Please put your potion in one of your flacons and put it on my desk with your name on it. Next class we will continue." Lily put her potion in one of her flacons, cleaned everything, put her book in her bag and put her flacon on the desk. She headed out to the door. Once outside she felt a hand on her shoulder. "Hey you, wait." A soft voice said. Lily turned around and saw that it was Severus. "Are you okay? It was mean what they did." Lily shuddered a bit. "Yes, I am fine. Thank you that you did not join them." Severus smiled. "Well, I am your friend and I do not agree with them on that. You want to grab some food and eat together outside?" lily nodded. "That would be nice."
She spend the lunch break chatting with Severus and felt a lot happier when she arrived for her next class. Her friends were asking if she was doing okay. She said she was doing fine. She also saw that James was about to say something to her, but she ignored him and kept walking. He shut his mouth again and Lily felt a jolt inside again for the second time that day. That will teach him. First of all she did not need him to defend her and second of all he was not any better than them. He was just a pathetic, little boy.