Chapter 4: Flying
Lily woke up the next morning with a feeling of great
excitement. Flying was the thing she had been looking forward to most. Forget
cursing Petunia, she wanted to fly. It was even better than cursing Snape,
their new-found enemy. She bounded out
of bed and washed and dressed before looking at the time. It was only 6
o'clock. Never mind. But why should she be awake and not the boys? With an evil
grin she ran up the stairs to their dormitory.
"WAKE UP! WAKE UP! RISE AND SHINE!" she yelled as
loudly as possible. "IT'S A LOVELY MORNING!" It was, but Lily had not even
bothered to look out of the window to see.
Frank Longbottom, in the nearest bed, woke with a
start, and dug his head under the covers when he saw Lily, muttering "I f I
didn't see it I'm not in trouble." Remus, always an early riser, sat up in bed,
but Peter and Sirius just rolled over and James didn't even move.
"Lily," said Remus seriously. "You are not supposed
to be in here."
"So what?"
"And it is," Remus gave a
small groan, "five past 6. You might just wake these two up, but never James.
He's slept through every argument his family have ever had, when I can hear
them across the street."
"He just hasn't met me
yet," Lily smiled sweetly. "As for the other two, I have one word: PRANK!"
Sirius sat straight
upright in bed, as Remus fell off his laughing. Peter rubbed his eyes sleepily
and got out of bed, crashing into the wall. "OW!" he yelped.
"Now for James," Lily said
before running out of the room. All three awake boys hid under their beds,
muttering what Frank had said five minutes earlier.
Lily darted back into the
room, carrying a large bucket of water. "1…2…3!" Triumphantly she tipped the
whole lot over James.
"AGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!" James' yell
was enough to wake the entire country. "Remus you- Lily! I'll KILL you!" He
jumped out of bed, just as Lily shot under Sirius'.
Seconds later, James' brother, followed by several
other angry boys, strode into the room. David did not look amused. "What are you
doing!" he bellowed.
"Nightmare." James said
quietly. "Sorry. But shouting like that isn't making it better, is it?"
David flushed, and tried to hit James, who ducked,
grinning. David decided his dignity was best kept by stopping then, so he
stalked out of the room, followed by the others. Sirius, Remus and Peter
reappeared, shaking with laughter at the dripping James and irate David.
"Where's Lily?" James
demanded angrily.
"Did I hear someone say
'prank'?" Sirius asked brightly.
"What? A Prank?" James was completely distracted.
"Yeah," said Lily, coming
out. "What about your brother and Siri's sister?"
The faces of all the boys
lit up. "What?" James and Sirius asked eagerly.
"Well… I found this colour
changing spell," Lily giggled.
"Cool!" four voices
agreed.
**************************
Lily had activated the spell as soon as David and
Esmerelda walked into the Great Hall together. David's black hair and brown
eyes went suddenly pink at the same time as Esmerelda's skin turned green.
Turning to look at each other, both shrieked and ran out of the hall, which
burst into laughter.
Two boys approached the five friends. "Wasn't that
just excellent, little bro?" he fair one said to James. "Wish I knew who did
it!"
"Well…" James said
mysteriously. Both boys leaned closer. "It was us!" The two boys stared in
shock. Then they laughed. "And your friends are?" James brother said.
"Lily, Sirius, this is
Luke. He's slightly better than David." Luke cuffed him round the head, before
smiling charmingly at Lily. "This is…" Luke began, before being cut off by
Sirius.
"I know who that is. My
darling older brother Orion, everyone." The boy with Luke nodded.
"Orion Black."
The two elder boys moved
off, leaving the others to enjoy their breakfast.
****************************
Never had a day seemed to go more slowly. Defence
Against the Dark Arts and Herbology crawled by, they were too excited to sleep
through History of Magic and suddenly Professor Flitwick didn't seem so easy
going in Charms. The five hours that had passed since breakfast seemed to take
five days. Finally, though, it was time for their flying lesson and they made
their way to the Quidditch pitch.
When Lily had revealed she didn't know what Quidditch
was, they had all begun to explain at once.
"It's the best sport in
the world!" Peter shouted enthusiastically.
"There's seven players,
right…" Remus was saying.
"Being a beater must be so
much fun, getting to whack things at everyone!" Sirius explained.
"The seekers are the most
important!" James was jumping up and down. ""Imagine: 150 points!"
Naturally this just made
Lily even more confused.
"SHUT UP!" she yelled
suddenly, startling the four. "One of you explain, just one of you."
So James spent the next
ten minutes explaining the complex rules of Quidditch, causing them to be late.
"There you are." The
Professor said, looking distracted. "Go and stand by a broom." They went to the
five remaining brooms. "Put your hand over the broom," the teacher told the
class, "And say 'Up'."
"UP!" the class yelled.
Most of the brooms stayed still. James', Sirius', Remus' and Lily's, to her
surprise, had jumped into their hands. "Right, pick them up," the teacher instructed the rest of the class,
"Then mount them like this." She went along correcting everybody. "Now, when I
say so, rise up a few feet by pointing the broom upwards, then come back. 3… 2…
1… NOW!"
Several of the Hufflepuffs
shot into the air and started drifting towards the school. The Professor jumped
on her broom and followed. Peter and Remus looked glad to have reached the
ground again, but James said, "Come on Sirius, you're not too scared are you?",
before shooting off expertly. Seconds alter Sirius had shot off, followed by a
determined Lily, who wobbled a bit.
"Wow, Lily!" Sirius called as they swooped over a
tree.
"That's really brave!"
added James. Soon all three off them were happily doing loop-the-loops and
hanging upside down, accompanied by loud shrieks from below. They didn't notice
Madam Hooch return.
"POTTER! BLACK! EVANS! WHAT ARE YOU DOING!" Her face
had gone bright red and her eyes were bulging.
"It's quite alright, Professor, we can fly!" Lily
proved her words to be true by diving to the ground and stopping right in front
of her. James and Sirius joined them.
"Detention! Two
detentions! I cannot believe you were that irresponsible!" The three grinned
and bowed. "Flying lesson is over for today!" Madam Hooch snapped.
As they trudged happily back to the castle, wondering
what their detentions would be, Sirius noticed that James had a faraway look on
his face. "Who's the lucky lady, Jamsie?" he joked.
"Oh, you," James answered
distractedly. They all took a step backwards.
"Wait a min, James, do you
realise what you just said?" Remus asked.
"Oh, sorry," James
replied, still looking as if he was dreaming.
"I think its Lily!" Sirius
said in a loud stage whisper. Both snapped around at that and suddenly his hair
was orange and his skin red. "Sorry, sorry," he said quickly, "didn't realise
you were so touchy. Take it, puh-lease?" He looked so innocent that, against
their better judgement, the two removed their spells.
"Come on or we'll be late for dinner!" Sirius
exclaimed, running towards the castle.
"Siri, it's two hours 'til
dinner!" Lily cried, running after him.
"Lets find the kitchen
then!"
*************************
Two hours
later they were exhausted. It seemed they had raced around the whole castle,
but there were no kitchens in sight. Peter had given up more than an hour ago
and the others were really hungry. They went to the dining hall and began to
eat. They ate and ate and ate. They ate until they couldn't eat another bite.
Unfortunately, they couldn't move either and they had to virtually crawl the
whole way back to Gryffindor tower, Peter skipping happily ahead of them.
"If I wasn't so full I'd
bloody kill him!" Remus moaned.
"If I wasn't so bloody
full he'd already be dead!" James muttered.
"If I wasn't so bloody
full you'd all be dead!" Sirius groaned.
"I'm to full to speak!"
whispered Lily. Too full to do anything active, they spent the evening playing
wizard chess and fell asleep the minute they got into bed.