Chapter Six: Blood and Revenge are Hammering in My Head

Lily's eyes narrowed as she scanned the classroom.

It remained stubbornly empty of Sirius Black.

She couldn't decide whether to be annoyed or relieved. Annoyed, because Sirius was her partner, and this was meant to be a partner project. Relieved because she wasn't quite sure how to treat him after his unexpected words last night. He'd actually been… nice. Sort of. Maybe her cousin wasn't quite as Black as the rest of the family?

But then she remembered that night almost two years ago, and James Potter standing over her with her taste on his lips, and she dismissed the thought. Many of the things that had happened that night had been all Sirius's fault. If he wasn't as bad as the others in their family… it was only because he was worse.

You know you can be just as cruel as them, when you want to be, a tiny voice pointed out inside her head. Lily ordered the voice to shut it and went up to Slughorn.

"Professor, my partner's not here."

"Yes, Mr Black is absent," Slughorn said ponderously. "You can work with Miss Bones and Miss Byron for today."

Lily nodded and turned to find them. As she did she paused, realising that there was another group of three in the classroom. The Ravenclaw boy, Henry Partington – James Potter's partner – was also working with another pair. She frowned. So Sirius and Potter were both absent? Something about that rang alarm bells inside her brain.

"Lily!"

She snapped out of her ruminations and went to where Amelia and Lucy were waving at her. She liked both of them well enough. They were the next pair along alphabetically and Amelia Bones was clever and law-abiding, a girl after Lily's own heart.

This Potions lesson certainly wouldn't be exploding in her face.

"It's very strange," Marlene said as Lily dropped down onto the bench beside her.

Lily grunted and reached for some mashed potatoes. "What is?"

"Look. None of the Marauders are there," Marlene pointed. Despite herself Lily looked. It was true. The Slytherin table was more reserved than usual and there was a very noticeable gap where the Marauders usually sat.

"Potter and Black weren't in Potions this morning this either," Arabella joined in. "They've never missed a lunchtime before. You don't reckon there's… there's something wrong, do you?"

"Serves them right if there is," Lily said tartly. But she remembered her sister's wedding, held in three days' time. She'd already asked Dumbledore for permission to attend. Cissy would be upset if their cousin didn't get to go. Not because she had any major attachment to Sirius, but for the image: it wouldn't look good if the most brilliant scion of the bride's family was absent.

Then again, if Sirius didn't go, Potter would hardly attend himself.

"Marlene, what are you doing?" she asked in alarm as Marlene suddenly got up and started walking.

"To find out," she said over her shoulder. Lily watched in quiet resignation as Marlene tapped Kylie Brown, who was sitting lower down the table. Of course her best friend would have seen that she was worried for Sirius and gone to find out. No, not exactly worried for him, she amended truthfully. Just worried he would ruin Narcissa's big day.

Marlene returned with the exasperated expression one associated with speaking to Brown. "Well, here's the long and short of it," she said. "Apparently, the word on the street is that the Marauders are..." She paused dramatically. "Asleep."

Lily blinked. "What?"

"Apparently there was a party of some sort in the Slytherin common room last night. A variety of witnesses testify to having seen them arrive, excluding Lupin. It's the generally accepted consensus that, for once in their lives, their livers couldn't handle the alcohol and they're recuperating in bed," Marlene clarified drily.

Lily's eyes narrowed. That Pettigrew or Lupin would have been laid low by a party, she could have believed. But as for Sirius… well, she'd never had a hangover in her life, and neither had her sisters: Black genes were traditionally held to be a sufficient antidote to alcohol, alongside their myriad other benefits. That her cousin – or Potter either, really – had developed the first hangover of his life, after nearly seven years of secondary school, was absurd. She'd seen them drinking herself often enough...

Abruptly, a horrifying thought occurred to her.

"Marlene – you don't think they threw this party because I got to be Seeker, do you? That they're celebrating how easy it'll be for them to beat us?"

"Of course not," Marlene said comfortingly. "I heard it was for Mulciber's seventeenth birthday."

Lily sighed with relief. "Well, I have my first Quidditch practice tonight, anyway," she said. "At seven. I'm glad McGonagall let me off those detentions."

"That's certainly convenient," Arabella agreed. "Come on now, we have Ancient Runes."

The two girls stood up, waving goodbye at Marlene, who had Care of Magical Creatures. Lily glanced at the Slytherin table as they skirted past.

They all seemed to be immersed in conversation, but she had the uncomfortable feeling that some – if not all – of them had been looking at her.

"Alright, listen up!" Frank roared. "We aren't a load of girls here, is that clear?" He noticed the glares of the female members of the team and smiled guiltily. "What I meant to say is, we're no carpet for the Hufflepuffs to walk all over. And now we have a new Seeker, who I'm sure will do spectacularly, and when the match rolls round in a couple of days we'll beat them into next week! Is that clear?"

"Crystal," the Quidditch team recited dutifully.

Lily kicked off from the ground for her warm-up lap. She was wearing her official Gryffindor Quidditch team robes for the first time, after Frank had presented them to her last night. She knew that the scarlet material clashed dreadfully with her ponytailed red hair, but it couldn't be helped.

For a moment the thought flashed into her head that the green Slytherin robes would have brought out her emerald eyes wonderfully. She snorted at the thought. When had she become so shallow? With more speed than necessary, she completed her lap and landed hard when she was done.

Frank lugged out the case filled with Quidditch balls. He tossed the Quaffle to Lisa Holmes, Darren Barker and Charles McLaggen, the three Chasers. Will Johnson and Harvey Cole – the Beaters – held tightly onto the struggling Bludgers to stop them escaping. Then it was Lily's turn.

She gazed at the tiny golden ball with reverence.

The Snitch was tiny, half the size of her fist, with a pair of fluttering golden wings. She stroked the cold metal in awe. It was so beautiful, but so cold. Far stronger than it looked. She had a flashback to second year, when she had heard Rabastan Lestrange describe her sister Narcissa in much the same way. Cissy was like that; all ethereal beauty without – and a core of steel within. Bellatrix, on the other hand, was as wild and dangerous as she looked. Andromeda had been too, though Lily immediately erased the thought of her banished sister.

"Right, off we go!" Frank ordered. Immediately six broomsticks rose into the air. Not Lily's: as Seeker, the normal parts of the game didn't affect her. She had to concentrate solely on finding the Snitch, which she released and watched fly away jaggedly. It had a two-minute head start.

Two minutes later Lily joined her teammates in the air and started looking for the Snitch.

It was early evening, and with the onset of winter the sky had darkened to a shadowy plum colour. The chief illumination came from the castle's windows, some way off, and the few lampposts dotting the stadium. Lily shivered in the brisk breeze. If only she had thought to wear a jacket over her robes.

She caught sight of a flash of gold and dived to see, but it turned out to be the torchlight reflecting off Darren Barker's glasses. It was so dark that her teammates were little more than hunched red blurs. Lily was careful, navigating around them slowly as they threw the Quaffle to each other and tried to get it past Frank. To make things harder for the Chasers, the Beaters were on the opposing side, so they had Bludgers to dodge too.

None of that had any bearing on Lily's job. The Beaters would protect her from Bludgers and she didn't need to worry about the Quaffle.

After a good twenty minutes, when Lily's entire body was frozen and she was seriously considering conjuring up a pair of gloves, she saw it.

"Finally!"

Her fingers closed around the little golden ball, darting around the base of the stands. She let out a triumphant yell. In her elation, however, she forgot to be careful of her surroundings.

Thwack!

There was the horrible sound of metal meeting wood, followed by a dull snap. Lily tumbled off her broom and fell the twelve or so metres to the ground.

"Lily!"

The rest of the team landed ungracefully. Frank sprinted over.

"Are you alright?"

"Does it look like I'm alright?" she rasped, made snappy by the excruciating pain in her arm and dull throbbing covering every inch of her body. Frank shook his head.

"We need to get you to the Hospital Wing. Cole, Johnson, get her up."

"No!" Lily hissed. "No Hospital Wing!"

"Yes, Hospital Wing. You had a bad fall, Lily. You need to let Madam Pomfrey see you right away."

"Not going there for third time in the same week," she said stubbornly. Her pride wouldn't allow it. She tried to say something else, but a moan of agony came out instead.

"Cole, Johnson, I said get her up!" Frank growled. "And I'll be having a chat with you boys. It's your duty to protect your Seeker from Bludgers! If this had happened in a game –"

"I can fix her, Captain," a voice interrupted. Frank turned to whoever it was. Lily tried and failed to lift her head.

"My mum's a Healer," Lisa Holmes continued. "I reckon I could do it." She knelt beside Lily. Lisa was tall and thin, with russet hair scraped back into a braid and dark brown eyes. She took out her wand.

"Broken arm?"

"Think so," Lily groaned. She bit back a hiss as Lisa lifted her arm and tapped it with her wand.

They waited. The pain didn't seem to be decreasing. Cole and Johnson edged closer.

"Thank you!" Lily gasped, sitting up suddenly as the ache vanished. A wave of dizziness overcame her, but she ignored it and smiled widely at Lisa. "Thank you so much. I just didn't want to have to go to the Hospital Wing, and I have patrols tonight."

"No problem," Lisa said, helping Lily to her feet.

"Right," Frank said. "Practice is over, people. Same time tomorrow night. Remember, we have a match next week!"

They mumbled an assent and hobbled off to the showers.

"Shit!"

Lily stopped dead as she heard the hissed expletive that most certainly had not come from her. Slowly, she turned around, her gaze scanning the dark corridor behind her. She saw a flash of white for a moment – just a glimpse of something markedly paler than the shadows that surrounded it – and walked closer.

Coincidence of coincidences, she was by the statue of the one-eyed witch that Mrs Norris had been sitting under in her last patrol.

She could see nothing there. Everything was silent, and she had the oddest feeling that the world itself was holding its breath. She was inclined to brush it off as lack of sleep and continue when she abruptly remembered a crucial fact.

James Potter had an Invisibility Cloak.

Instantly she whirled to face the statue, wand out, and whispered, "Honumen revelio!"

The spell that revealed human presence flared and showed her the vague outline of a group of people, crouched in front of the statue. She strode forward.

"Come out where I can see you, Potter. I know you're there."

Nothing happened for a moment, then there was a shimmer and she saw the four boys straighten up. Sirius rounded on Potter and exploded.

"What the hell, James? How does she know?"

Potter didn't answer, looking at Lily through narrowed hazel eyes. She, meanwhile, was glaring at Remus Lupin.

"Ill, Lupin," she said. "Really? Because you seem perfectly healthy to me. Healthy enough to be gallivanting off with your friends to God knows where, at any rate."

A dull flush spread over his cheeks at the clear disgust in her tone.

"And you meant to be Head Boy," she said. "Well, twenty points from Slytherin, of course. What were you even doing here around this statue?"

There was a silence as they refused to answer. Lily rolled her eyes.

"Alright then, keep your secrets. I don't really care. I'm off."

Just as she turned her back, Potter spoke.

"Not going to rat me out about the Cloak, Lily?"

She looked at his face, wiped so meticulously of anything that hinted at vulnerability, but she had a strange feeling that he was waiting anxiously for her reply. She hesitated as she tried to sort out her own emotions.

"Not this time, Potter," she said at last. "After all, I owe you one for the Sprout thing." She walked off without looking back at him.

As she slid into bed later on, it occurred to her that having James Potter feeling grateful to her was an incredible power rush. She could certainly get used to that.

AN: Isn't this chapter title amazing? I might actually have to turn it into the title for a whole fic.

In today's life update, lockdown has basically turned me into Mary Berry... I made Nutella fudge cake today (4/10 success rating) and some AMAZING lemon curd to go in a tart for tonight. I'll update you tomorrow on how it goes!

Next chapter tomorrow morning. The plot is hotting up...