James finally managed to detach his quidditch robes and broomstick. Except now his broom had a red patch on the handle and his robes had a big hole in them. After trying unsuccessfully to magic them apart, he had opted for a pair of shiny silver scissors.
'I'll have to go to Hogsmeade before the next match
to get some new robes,' he thought annoyedly, 'Or the girls will have a fit.'
Remembering the look on Lily's face after the game,
he became determined to strike back.
"Watch out, Lily Evans. The tables will be turning soon," he said to no one in particular. With that, he pocketed his wand and went downstairs for breakfast.
***
Lily sat at the Gryffindor table, joking around with
Kyla and Celeste. Professor Dumbledore was boring them with his usual
after-meal announcements, and Lily couldn't wait to get outside and explore the
Hogwarts grounds. It was a perfect day, and since it was Saturday, she could
spend it doing whatever she wanted.
She was musing about what she would do first, when
suddenly, she found herself jumping up and down with her hand raised. She
didn't know why she was doing this; it was as if something, or someone, was
controlling her body. All the students started staring at her with incredulous
looks on their faces.
"Why, thank you, Lily!" said Dumbledore, beaming.
"Huh?" said Lily, confused.
"In all my years at Hogwarts, no one has been this
enthusiastic about scrubbing the old cauldrons down in the dungeon! Especially
on a beautiful day like this!" continued Dumbledore.
"Scrubbing the old caul--?!" Lily sputtered.
"But--but…"
Seething, she immediately looked over at where James
was sitting. He was reading a book, which he held up so Lily could see the
title. It was called: the complete guide to making human puppets out of
your enemies.
Lily glared at James, then told Professor Dumbledore that there had been a mistake.
"Oh, no, there's no mistake," said Professor
Dumbledore. "You just volunteered your whole day to cleaning the old potions
from the magic cauldrons. Don't worry, you should be done before dinner time."
"Dinner time!" Lily all but yelled. "But can't you
just clean the cauldrons by magic?"
"Not these," said Professor Dumbledore patiently.
"Most cauldrons can be scoured by a flick of the wand, but these cauldrons must
be cleaned up by hand."
Lily started to say something, but Professor
Dumbledore held up his hand and told her to report to the dungeon as soon as
she was done with breakfast.
Lily sat down heavily, homicide in mind if James
dared to laugh. But he only stared at her innocently and pretended to be deeply
absorbed in his book.
'That's it, James Potter! You're really
asking for it!' she thought, angrily anticipating wasting an entire day up to
her elbows in filthy gunk.
Petunia had always told her to give as good as you
get, and for once, Lily decided to take her sister's advice.
To be continued…
A/N: August
6, 2000—I just wanted to say that I wrote this before GoF came out,
so I didn't know that this was an Unforgivable Curse. Just pretend that for
this story it's a Perfectly Forgivable Curse, 'kay?