Lily scrambled off her bed,
and darted down the girl's dormitory stairs. She climbed quickly through
the portrait hole, and ran down the hallway, "I gotta make it, I gotta
make it," she whispered to herself as she ran, her bag under her arm.
The bell started to ring
just as Lily came into the doorway.
"You're late, Miss Evans,"
Professor McGonagall said sternly, looking over her square shaped glasses
at the red-faced girl, as she slumped into her seat in the back of the
second row.
"All right, everyone please
open your books to page one hundred forty six. We will begin a new chapter
on changing the colour of an object," McGonagall stated, standing up from
her desk, "Now, it isn't as easy as it looks, different colours require
different amounts of concentration....."
Lily had already read this
chapter several times in her review, but still paid attention as much as
possible. She was dozing off slightly, when and piece of folded parchment
hit her in the forehead. Her first reaction was surprise but the second
was anger, this wasn't the first time something had been thrown at her.
She quickly unfolded it
and read it to herself;
Come and join us at lunch.
~ James, Sirius, Remus, and Peter
Lily flushed and looked
around. Peter was turned to her, looking hopeful. She nodded to him and
he smiled brightly.
"Now, everyone, I want you
to step forward and turn each of these buttons a different colour," McGonagall
said, putting eight different buttons on her desk, which were to be turned
into one colour of the spectrum, "Now, let's see which of you wasn't paying
attention enough to do this..." She said, surveying the room with her eyes.
Her lips looked tight as she peered down at her students.
"You, Mr. Potter, come up
here," McGonagall said, pointing at him. He looked up at her. His glasses
drooped down the bridge of his nose, pushing them back up, he stood up
straight and walked to her desk.
"I'll tell you what colour
to turn each of these buttons, and you will attempt to change them," she
said, sitting back down. All eight buttons were lined up in a straight
line. James held his wand loosely in his hands, awaiting her command. Lily's
attention rose as she saw James standing in front of the class.
"Red," McGonagall said sharply,
pointing at the first button. James barely raised his wand when then button
turned fire engine red. She gave him a satisfied look, then pointed to
the next button.
"Blue."
Again, he had barely lifted
his wand, when the button transformed from black to blue. McGonagall was
again satisfied, but her lips thinned in irritation.
"Magenta!" She nearly shouted.
Again, James did this nearly without effort. He pretended to yawn while
leaning back on the heels of his shoes. McGonagall was about to explode,
when the bell rang throughout of the hallways. She forced herself to relax,
but before they left she snapped at them.
"I expect all of you to
be able to do that by tomorrow!" she said, unclenching her hands and sloping
down into the chair.
@---^---
Lunch came faster then even
Lily had dreamed. She was so happy, her aura was sky blue, and filled every
room she went into with sunshine.
When she decided to make
her entrance, she paused and peered inside the great hall before barging
in, What if it's all a joke? What if they start looking at me like I'm
a frog? Lily thought, slowly peeping through the crack she made in the
doorway. Her muscles were tightening and her palms were filling up with
sweat.
She leaned even closer so
she could see farther inside, her heart beating at a thousand miles a minutes,
when someone tapped her on her shoulder and she was sure she jumped four
feet into the air, and let a loud squeak escape her throat.
"Hello," Sirius said pleasantly,
as Lily regained her balance on the floor.
"H-Hi," she croaked out
in a high pitched voice. Her head was spinning weakly, but Sirius came
into focus clearly.
"Are you ready?" He asked,
pushing the door open the rest of the way. Lily nodded a shaky reply and
she walked in with him. No one seemed to notice their arrival, they continued
chattering like it was nothing.
Lily's eyes darted around
looking at every different house table until, she and Sirius reached the
one for Gryffindor. Remus and Peter were seated across from them, each
smiled lightly as she sat down.
She was about to open her
mouth and ask 'Where's James?' when he appeared right in front of her.
Her eyes disfocused again, and James sat there, calmly holding a tray of
sandwiches in his arms.
"We never eat anything the
school gives us," Sirius said, taking a sandwich off the plate, "So usually
James goes down to the kitchen and fetches us things. Isn't that right,
James?"
"My humble master, I live
to serve," James said, putting the tray down and bowing in his seat.
"But you..... you weren't
there a second ago," Lily said, reaching for her own sandwich while her
lip trembled slightly. She still was nearly shacking, she hadn't seen anyone
come out of thin air before.
"I was just using my invisibility
cloak," he responded like it was nothing special, "My mum didn't want me
to have one, but dad insisted on it, because he remembers having to suffer
through casserole Thursday, and leftover Sunday."
After that frightening jolt,
things began to mellow down. Lily was really enjoying herself and hoped
she'd be able to come sit with them again. About half way through their
lunch, she pulled off her hat and let her hair fall down her back. It was
dark red, but still reflected light back into your eyes when the sun caught
it. She tucked it behind her ears and ate very delicately. Remus too seemed
to copy this elegant matter, small precise bites, while Sirius and James
didn't seem to care if they spilled things down their fronts.
Lily's eyebrows went up
when she felt something hit her in the back of her head. A piece of bread
crust rolled off her long hair, and landed on the floor. She scowled seeing
Severus Snape laughing at her quietly.
"What's wrong?" Peter asked,
trying to look over her head, but he was so short even standing up he could
barely see over her hat.
"Nothing, someone just threw
something in my hair," she said turning back to the table. Lily didn't
notice until it was far to late, that her hair was so long that nearer
the tips it was hard to feel anything, unless you concentrated very hard
on them. Since she wasn't thinking about her hair any longer, it didn't
feel strange that suddenly her hair felt much lighter then normal. A Slytherin
who was almost like the leader of Severus' gang had used a Severing Charm,
and slowly was cutting away at Lily's beautiful dark red hair.
She did finally notice,
though, when the charm got to close to her skin, and she felt a small warmth
on her back. Reaching back she felt the spot, but couldn't feel any hair.
Her hair was now up to just above her shoulders, when originally it was
down nearly to her knees. She gasped and looked behind her, Sirius to looked
down at the floor and his jaw dropped. Lily slowly picked a long strand
of hair off the floor and looked over at the Slytherin table, again they
were all laughing like monkeys, and nearly everyone was pointing at her.
Several members off
the other tables were standing from their seats to see what was so funny.
Sirius, who was attempting
to hold in his laughter, put his hand on Lily's shoulder to comfort her,
"It'll, be.... ok." But right after he got the sentence out, he burst into
laughter along with nearly everyone in the great hall. Lily turned back
to the table horrified that her hair was missing. She looked down at the
boys who had invited her there. She could live if Sirius laughed, and even
Remus and Peter but when James started laughing, her anger and sorrow couldn't
be held in any longer. She jumped up and ran out of the hall faster then
someone being chased by a unicorn. Her sobs echoed around the table as
she left. James and company stopped laughing and watched her as she ran.
None of them were brave enough to go and stop her.