my dear friends -
you have already seen how the boundaries between the houses were diminished, allowing Remus, James, Peter, and Sirius to becoem as good friends as they did. here begins the answer to a great many other things you may wonder about, that seem to have no reason. in particular, why, when Severus and Sirius were such good friends at first, did they become such terrible enemies? why has Harry never heard mentioned the name of Marianne Addams, the woman who was Lily's best friend for most of her years at Hogwarts and who very nearly married James Potter? the answers, dear readers, lie within.
-Adiemus Evans
ps - should you wish to learn more about A Requiem for a Dream, the book penned by Ravenclaw and Slytherin that Lily look at in this chapter, it will be appearing here shortly, translated from the Middle English by myself and miss Alicia Jennings.
Chapter 5 - The Fly (Sarah Brightman: Fly)
I know a colourful room
Where we can fly
And take a spin to the moon
On Aunt Angelica's pie
I am a fly, pie in the sky
"Great Morgana - it's nearly the Christmas holidays! I feel like I've been here two weeks, not three months!" I threw myself into an armchair nearby Remus's in the Ravenclaw common room.
"Don't I know it - we haven't even had a chance to look around the grounds!"
"But we've been busy - doing all kinds of useful things like making feathers float, and making matches pointy, and learning why vampires hate garlic. I'm sure that'll come in handy next time we're in Romania," I said disgustedly. I got up and went over to the panel of twelve-foot-high windows. I had hardly been outside the castle since I arrived, and then only to watch games out on the quidditch pitch, or to practice flying. Looking down, I saw the lake that lay at the bottom of the cliff upon which the castle perched. Looking out even farther, I could catch a glimpse of the forbidden forest. Looking the other way, I saw nothing but snow, ice, and forest.
I turned to walk over to the wet bar. I needed coffe (Remus had hooked me earlier in the year). I wanted a latte. No, too weak. A java, then. As I turned, though, a brilliant flash of red caught my eye. I quickly turned back and squinted. I couldn't make out anything in that direction but ice and snow. Slowly, a turned my head again. A brilliant flash of green - then it was gone. Back the other way - now purple. Perhaps it was just a reflection of the snow, but...
"Oy, Danielle!" I called up to the first balcony, where Danielle Gingerluck was reshelving a few books. She was the prefect, and had claimed the job of Ravenclaw house librarian. Everyone had been quick to allow her, since it was a massive job. Ravenclaw had quite a few books, to put it mildly, and Danielle seemed to know what was in every one of them and where it was kept.
"Yeah?" She leaned over the balcony's railing so she could see me.
"Where could I find a map of Hogwarts?"
She considered a moment. "There's a really detailed one of the castle in The Foundation of Hogwarts; we don't have that in here. It's in the school library, fourth row, first column, second shelf. By Godric Gryffindor. Then of course there's Hogwarts: A History, but its maps are pretty general. Then if you're looking for a map of the whole lands, Salazar Slytherin and Rowena Ravenclaw wrote A Requiem for a Dream together - it's actually written in fiction form, but the maps of the grounds are the best anywhere. Fourth balcony, fifth shelf from the left, second row." I nodded, amazed at her memory for books, their contents, and their locations.
I hurried up to the fourth balcony of the Ravenclaw tower and quickly found the book. It was a large one, with a red leatherbound cover. I opened it to the first few pages and quickly found what I was looking for. Here was the castle, and there was the forbidden forest, and the lake, so the glint I saw must have been in that direction... I traced my finger along the page. There, written in such small lettering that it was hard to read, was written, "Here lies Rainbow Lake."
**
Technically, Remus and I were supposed to be in Transfiguration class in ten minutes. But the worst that would probably happen would be a detention, and this was finally something out of the ordinary routine of school. Neither of us was very good at transfiguration, anyway.
After exerting a little 'negative influence' (as the strict deputy headmaster later referred to it) on our peers, the whole gang of us was trudging out through the snow toward Rainbow Lake. By this time, we really had overcome the division between the houses. James and Marianne were there from Gryffindor, and Sirius and Severus from Slytherin (Lavinia usually deign to hang out with us), and Remus and I from ravenclaw, and Peter and his best friend Antares (you can always tell which ones have wizard parents) from Hufflepuff. All of us were under my disguising charm, one that I was very proud of, and that we got a good deal of use out of. Unless someone was specifically looking for us or carefully scanning the terrain, their eyes would pass right over us without noticing us.
It took about twenty minutes of trudging through the snow ("we should have brought broomsticks," complained Sirius) before we reached a little knoll. As I crested the small hill, the sun flashed off the crystal-clear water in front of my, and my eyes were dazzled with the bright purple color. The sun moved behind a cloud and the glare subsided, but the lake remained a startling shade of purple. I turned my head slightly in one direction, and suddenly the lake was green. Turned it again - orange. Blue. Red. Pink.
I walked down to the edge of the lake, which was strangely devoid of any kind of ice. I dipped my hand into the deep scarlet water. It was warm. I looked down into it. The water was as clear as air. Clearer, perhaps. I could see the maroon boulders lying on the bottom, which looked to be a good five-hundred feet down - which was odd, considering the lake was only about fifty feet in diameter. And perfectly round, too, now that I noticed it. I looked back down into the now-green water - and suddenly felt very dizzy, standing on the edge of such a huge precipice. i know a colourful room where we can fly... Mesmerized by the beautiful colouring, I tipped forward into it and didn't even notice until I heard the splash.
The spell that the lake had cast over me and my friends was broken, and suddenly we were all laughing. Peter and Severus ran to the edge of the lake to help me out. "Cold, Lily?" Severus asked with a grin. I started to laugh, then stopped and considered.
"No, not at all...for that matter, I'm not wet, either." Severus looked at me curiously, then dipped his hand down into the lake and drew it out.
"She's right," he said, sounding awed. "The water's about twice as warm as the air, and it definitely isn't wet." He held out the hand he had just dipped in for everyone to feel.
"Well then, why are we all standing here on the shore, freezing our asses off?" asked Marianne as she threw her winter cloak to the ground and jumped into the pool. Before long, we were all splashing around in the pool - dunking each other, splashing each other with water that didn't get us wet, seeing how deep we could dive before coming up for air... The water was so transparent that when you dove, you could see everything as though there were no water there at all, which gave us a feeling of flying, since that's what it felt and looked like. Flying in a purple - now red - now orange - miasma of colour.
The lake was obviously not naturally formed. The surface was a perfect circle, and though the walls were rocky and sometimes jagged, the edge of the lage was a complete dropoff. There were no shallows. The only place to rest your feet was five-hundred feet down. We didn't bother to worry about how the lake had been formed, though. We just enjoyed the feeling of swimming in warm, dry water.
**
Someone else had skipped class that period. That someone, sitting deep in the Slytherin common room, had become so engrossed in a book that she'd completely forgotten about classes. She became more and more interested in the book by the page. This could be her chance to prove herself to that high-and-mighty crew that hung out with her brother. She knew they'd deny it, but none of them ever though of her as anything but 'Severus's little sister'. The quiet one. The one he dotes on. The one who barely had enough magic to get into Hogwarts, despite an excellent family history of magic. She had been the first person to read this book in hundreds of years - it had been hidden under a flagstone in the dungeons. She had tripped over the flagstone, pulling it up and revealing the book. The cover was smeared with blood. It was entitled The Curse of Rainbow Lake.