A/N: Yaaay!! I finally, finally, finally, finally finished it!!!! Woo-hoo! I bet all of you are happy, right? Right. Well, anyway, I made this chapter really long to compensate for it being so late in posting, and yeah. Thank-yous are posted at the bottom, and I just have one more thing to say before letting you read the story: PLEASE READ MY AUTHOR NOTES!!! PLEASE!!! So many questions would be answered for you if you would JUST READ THE AUTHOR'S NOTES!!!!!!!!!!
*a-hem* Well. Now that that's over with, here's the story!
Chapter Six
The Good Old Days
Lily ran through the school like a madwoman, clutching her broom so tightly her knuckles were white, which wasn't easy, because her hands were so sweaty she could barely grip it. Images flitted through her mind as she ripped through one secret passageway after another. Once she ran into the caretaker, Filch, but didn't stop or bother to say she was sorry. At this point all she cared about was James.
She reached the top of the tallest tower, mounted her broom and flew. Using several illegal speed charms, she sped off like a fighter plane into the distance. A fighter plane...Lily thought to herself. Bad analogy. It was only bad because it made her think of James. Suddenly, a memory bubbled up from the depths of her brain.
She remembered the stupid fight they'd had when Harry was just a baby, over whether or not Lily should make airplane noises to feed Harry his baby food with. Tears streamed more insistently down her cheeks. She pushed her broom to go faster. There were so, so many memories...
* * *
Harry couldn't sleep. It was impossible. He was too elated. He stared out the window at the half-full moon with a dopey smile on his face. He'd made the Quidditch team. He'd made the Quidditch team! Youngest player in a hundred years!
He suddenly saw something fly across the sky and shadow the moon, but it was only for a moment, and so quick that Harry wasn't sure whether he'd really seen it at all. It looked like it might have resembled someone--or something--on a broomstick, but he had only seen it for an instant, so he couldn't be sure.
He slipped back into his Quidditch daze, completely unaware of what was happening in any other part of the world for that moment, such as Transylvania...or, for that matter, in his own school...
* * *
Sirius rushed up the stairs to Dumbledore's office, ripping through even more secret passageways than Lily had. He ran into Filch, too, and Filch was less than pleased as Sirius tried to scurry along without a word.
"Hey! Come back here!" Filch yelled.
Sirius turned around and grabbed Filch's hand quite unexpectedly, shaking it eagerly. "Filch! 'Ol buddy, 'ol pal! Good to see ya! How's that darling cat of yours? Still flea-infested, I hope? Good! Good! Well, I must be on my way now, I've got children to terrorize!" Sirius said this all very quickly and dashed off again, leaving Filch quite confused.
Sirius made it to the statue in front of Dumbledore's office. He knew the password somewhere in the depths of his mind (he thought) but he wasn't sure if it had been changed or not, so he took out his wand and pressed it against the gargoyle's nose. Its eyes lit up, and Sirius started talking.
"Professor Dumbledore! It's Sirius Black! I need to talk to you!"
The gargoyle worked as something of an intercom for those who knew its secret. After several moments, Dumbledore's sleepy voice crackled back over.
"Come on up," he said, and the gargoyle jumped aside. Sirius entered and climbed the staircase as quickly as he could. He knocked on the doors before he entered, and was somewhat surprised to see Dumbledore sitting at his desk in blue-and-white striped pajamas with a cap to match.
"Hello, Sirius," Dumbledore said cheerfully, although he punctuated the end of the greeting with a large yawn. "Interesting moon tonight, wouldn't you say?" Dumbledore sat back in his chair and put his hands behind his head, looking out the window as if he hadn't a care in the world. Sirius could see his feet poking out around the edge of the desk and noted that they were covered in a particularly fine pair of wool socks.
"Ah, yes," Dumbledore said, noting Sirius's gaze. "Lovely socks, aren't they? Lily got them for me last Christmas. I always told her you can never have too many wool socks. I must admit I am rather fond of them."
Sirius smiled. This was part of why he liked Dumbledore so much. Any other wizard of Dumbledore's power and reputation would most likely be strutting around the office with a military command demanding to know why they were awaken at such an hour of the night. Dumbledore, however, was content to sit and talk about the interesting moon and pairs of wool socks before getting around to the real matter at hand. And he was incredibly modest, too. Sirius imagined if he ever became famous, powerful, and well-respected, he'd want to become something like Dumbledore.
"Now, what did you want to talk about?" he asked.
"Well," Sirius said grimly. "Lily's rushed off in the middle of the night to go find James, who she and her daughter Melody seem to think is in very big trouble. They got very worried about the state of the moon."
Dumbledore nodded and got up from his chair. He walked over to the window and gazed out of it thoughtfully, hands clasped behind his back. He turned to Sirius. "You know what this means, don't you?" he asked.
Sirius sat up straighter in his chair, tensing and preparing for the worst possible statement ever. "What?" he asked.
Dumbledore turned back to the window. "We're going to need a new Potions master."
* * *
"ALEX! Alex, WAKE UP!" Melody yelled, running up the stairs and into Harry's room, where Alex was sleeping. She shook him awake, and, disoriented, he rolled over and fell onto the floor.
"Ow," Alex said, getting up.
"Alex, we have to go to Hogwarts!" Melody said. "Pack up a suitcase! We're leaving right now!"
Alex blinked. "Have you gone mad?"
"No!" Melody said furiously. "I have not gone mad! We just need to get to Hogwarts!"
"Why do we have to go to Hogwarts in the middle of the night?" Alex asked sleepily, sitting down on his bed.
"Because!" Melody said, as if that explained everything. She yanked Alex's suitcase out from its position at the foot of Harry's bed and opened it. It was still full of clothes and stuff. "You haven't unpacked yet?" she asked, looking up at Alex. He shrugged.
"First of all, do I ever unpack? Second of all, where am I supposed to put it?"
"Harry's closet is empty, ya know." Melody said. "He took all his clothes to Hogwarts with him!"
"He did?"
"Yeah!" Melody said, walking over to Harry's closet and yanking open the doors. There was nothing left on the clothes rack except hangers. "Observe!" she said.
"But that's not important right now!" she rambled on. "I'm going to go pack a suitcase! We have to go to Hogwarts!"
She left the room before Alex could even ask 'Why?' again. He shook his head after her and flopped back down on Harry's bed. "She's mad," he said, and rolled over, fully intending on going back to sleep.
"And don't you dare fall back asleep!" Melody yelled from her bedroom.
Alex sat back up. "Bugger," he said, and dragged his suitcase downstairs, setting it in front of the fireplace. Several minutes later Melody came clunking down the stairs with a suitcase that was bulging.
"Okay, let's go," she said, reaching for the Floo powder.
"Why are we going again?"
"Because," Melody said, throwing some Floo into the fire. "My dad's in trouble!" she said, and stepped into the fireplace. "Potions dungeon at Hogwarts!" Alex heard her yell before she disappeared.
Alex sighed and followed her example.
* * *
Melody Cauldwell was not a happy person. Here she was, at one in the morning, stumbling through the hallways in a thin nightgown and a bathrobe when she should be asleep. She made it to the gargoyle in front of Dumbledore's office and muttered "Ben and Jerry's" (Dumbledore had spent the summer in America and discovered 'Ben & Jerry's' ice cream), walking through the opening after the gargoyle had jumped aside.
She knocked on the door to Dumbledore's office and wasn't particularly surprised to find that, upon her entry, she saw Sirius Black and the professor playing a particularly fine game of ping-pong. Melody gave them a 'you-really-are-pathetic-little-boys' look, shook her head, and sat down in a chair.
"Good morning, Melody," Dumbledore said, not taking his eyes off the ping-pong game.
Melody yawned. "I don't know if I'd call it a particularly good morning, Professor," she said. "I was, after all, dragged out of bed at one in the morning and all I seem to be doing is bearing witness to a rather boring ping-pong game."
Sirius missed the ping-pong ball and it suddenly exploded. Melody jumped slightly. "As you were saying?" Sirius asked. Melody relaxed, and her eyes went from round back to their half-asleep position. She just shook her head and yawned again.
With a 'pop!' the ping-pong table disappeared, and Dumbledore walked over and sat at his desk. Sirius sat down next to Melody.
"What's wrong?" Melody asked.
"Well, Lily appears to have run off in the night, and we are short a potions master." Dumbledore said.
"WHAT? WHY?" Melody asked, shocked.
Dumbledore turned to Sirius, who nodded and started explaining. "Lily's gone off after James. She thinks he's in trouble."
"What's gone wrong?" Melody asked, worry lines etched all over her face.
"We're not sure. Melody woke up in the middle of the night and came downstairs shrieking that her dad was in trouble. She woke me up and we came to Hogwarts, where we found Lily. She saw the moon, felt something was wrong, and flew off to who knows where. Now we have no idea where either James or Lily are."
"And we're short a Potions master," Dumbledore finished. "Which is part of why we interrupted your beauty sleep,"
"I never said I was getting beauty sleep," Melody said defensively.
"Well, I suppose that's a good thing then, as I believe if you were any prettier, Mr. Black would most likely fall out of his chair," Dumbledore said with a twinkle in his eye.
Melody quickly looked over at Sirius, who averted his gaze from her and turned a quite brilliant shade of red. Melody started giggling, turning a little pink herself.
Dumbledore looked upon James, Lily, Melody, Sirius, and Remus as something of his children. At the very least he felt some responsibility for them. He'd taken notice of them since their first year at Hogwarts-Melody, Sirius, Remus, and James because they had a knack for getting in trouble and Lily because she was exceptionally bright. They had all become Prefects, and soon after that, best friends (although Lily and James liked to pretend they hated each other), mostly because of Melody and the fact that she was Lily's best friend.
They were an amazing group of people, and Dumbledore held them all in the greatest respect. But that didn't mean he exempted them from a fair amount of teasing. Melody and Sirius, for example, needed all the teasing and help they could get before they would finally admit they liked each other. They were being more stubborn than James and Lily, and considering James and Lily's Romance That Wasn't, that was quite a feat.
Sirius and Melody were two of the best-looking people Dumbledore had ever seen (which, considering all the people Dumbledore had met in his life, was saying something), and if they ever got married, they would have disgustingly beautiful children. And considering the way Sirius and Melody had been looking at each other for the past ten years, they were bound to get married sometime, if not soon.
Nobody could blame Melody for being cautious about stepping into another relationship after her awful marriage. To this day, Dumbledore wasn't sure what had compelled her to marry Lucifer Malfoy. He was much older than her, they didn't appear to have anything in common, and...well, Dumbledore supposed it was her choice.
"Getting back to the matter at hand," Dumbledore said. "We need a new Potions master." He looked very pointedly at Melody.
"Oh, no!" she said. "I am not teaching Potions class!"
"We don't have very many options," Dumbledore said. "Unless you'd rather Professor Vector did it. That's very possible. He's good at potions. However," Dumbledore continued, noting the sour look on Melody's face at the mention of Professor Vector, "I think that Lily would rather have a close friend look over her potions for her, wouldn't you say?"
Melody sighed. "But I'm the Dueling Master! How am I supposed to teach potions and dueling at the same time and keep all of it straight? I mean, the times wouldn't conflict, I suppose, but that's a lot to keep track of!"
"We can always have Sirius assist with dueling." At this, Sirius's eyes sparked.
"Dueling is fun!" he said, en evil-looking smile spreading across his face.
"Oh no," Melody said. "You are not going to take over my dueling club. I am going to give you explicit instructions!"
"Sure," Sirius said, avoiding her gaze, still smiling. Melody just laughed. He wouldn't do anything she wouldn't do.
"So it's arranged, then?" Dumbledore asked. Melody and Sirius nodded. "I believe you'll find Lily's class schedule in her office, but we can worry about that in the morning. Good night."
"Good night," Sirius and Melody said together. They all rose and left, quite tired.
* * *
Lily should have been tired, but her heart was pumping the blood too fast through her veins for her to get drowsy. She took hold of the "L" pendant at her neck and closed her eyes, hoping for some sort of sign as to where James could possibly be. When he had given her the necklace they hadn't been dating, and the fact that they were friends seemed subject to change at any time. Even though they weren't that close (or at least weren't willing to admit they were), Lily suspected he had put some sort of charm on it to link him to her, because whenever they were apart, it seemed like the necklace could lead her to him.
She felt a tug in her gut and a tingle where her fingers were touching the pendant. The necklace was telling her where to go. She opened her eyes with new determination and flew into the night, pushing the broom to go faster than ever.
* * *
Lily landed in a forest somewhere, dismounting and drawing her cloak close around her, hoping it would help her blend into the night. There was a town nearby, but she couldn't very well just fly in at who-knows-when in the morning and start knocking on doors, especially since she knew there would be Aurors there keeping watch over the skies for Death Eaters, because even though Death Eaters didn't usually fly, the Ministry was developing a system to track when and where Death Eaters Apparated. It was all very complicated.
It was very dark in the forest, and she would have loved to light her wand, but she didn't for fear of being seen by the wrong people or being seen and mistaken for someone on the wrong side.
She crept through the forest as carefully and quietly as she could, which wasn't working very well because she could see very little moonlight through the trees and kept stepping on twigs and snapping them. She winced every time she did it and nearly gave up trying to be quiet, but decided she wasn't going to risk anything.
For a moment Lily wondered why she wasn't just Apparating into the town, and decided she really didn't know, except for the fact that she really wouldn't know where to Apparate to inside the town and might end up landing in somebody's house or something, and that certainly wouldn't be good. Then she wondered why she hadn't Apparated to this forest in the first place, and realized that she hadn't known where she was going in the first place, and that was why she had flown. She was starting to make sense to herself, yes she was!
Okay, Lily thought, shaking her head. Maybe I'm a little bit more tired than I'm giving myself credit for...
She suddenly got the sense she was being watched and jerked her head instinctively, then hit herself mentally for being so stupid. Now, if someone really was watching her, they most likely knew her exact location.
Before she could think of anything to do, she heard a voice call out a spell into the night.
"Stupefy!"
She gasped, and tried to jump out of the way, but it was too late. She just moved herself even more into the path of the spell, and then there was nothing.
* * *
This. Was not. Good.
Alex and Melody looked at each other and gulped. They both looked back at the strange old man who was looking for some form or another in his desk. He seemed to find what he was looking for and set the forms on his desk. He stood over Alex and Melody, hands clasped behind his back.
"Out of bed, eh?" He said to them. "Thought you'd just take a midnight stroll? Forget the school rules, did we?"
"Oh, no, we-" Melody began, trying to explain they weren't students, but the old man cut her off, which, she thought after a moment, was probably a good thing, considering she'd probably be in more trouble if the old man knew she wasn't supposed to be anywhere near this school, let alone roaming the halls at night looking for Alex's mom.
"Enough! I don't need excuses, I just need names. What are your names?" He asked them, staring at both of them hard.
"Shouldn't I be appointed a lawyer before I answer these kind of questions?" Alex challenged.
Melody glared at him, a sour look on her face. He had spent far too many holidays with Muggles in America.
The old man looked confused and slightly angry. "Tell me your name," he barked, "or it'll be the Headmaster's office for you!"
Melody didn't think this seemed like such a bad idea. She knew Dumbledore, and he'd be much easier to talk to than whoever this was.
She stood up and crossed her arms defiantly. "We're not telling you anything!" she said.
The old man went rather red. "That's enough! We're going to see the Headmaster!" He grabbed one of Melody's arms rather roughly and dragged her out of his office. Alex shrugged and followed the pair of them.
The old man led (or dragged, in Melody's case) them upstairs to a statue of a gargoyle and said "Ben and Jerry's". The gargoyle sprang aside, much to the shock of Alex and Melody, and they then proceeded up a staircase to a set of double doors, which the old man knocked on.
They waited for several minutes for Professor Dumbledore to answer. He did, looking slightly sleepy but more awake than one might be at three o'clock in the morning. He was wearing blue-and-white striped pajamas with a matching cap and fuzzy blue slippers.
"Mr. Filch, how can I help you?" Dumbledore asked. Melody looked at him, amazed. Who had the energy to be polite at three o'clock in the morning?
"These two were roaming the halls and they've refused to tell me their names!" Dumbledore looked at Alex and Melody and nodded.
"Very well. Leave them with me, and I will deal with them accordingly. Good night, Mr. Filch."
Mr. Filch nodded and left, and Dumbledore beckoned Melody and Alex into his office.
"I take it you two have heard about Lily running off in the night?" Dumbledore asked, sitting down in his chair and yawning. Melody nodded, but Alex looked rather confused. He opened his mouth to ask, but Melody stepped on his toe and hissed,
"I'll explain later!"
Dumbledore looked rather amused. Melody cleared her throat and spoke.
"I was the one who woke up and thought my dad was in danger in the first place."
Dumbledore nodded. "Well, Godric's Hollow is really the safest place for the both of you," he said.
Melody leaned back in her chair and groaned.
"However," Dumbledore continued, and Melody's ears perked up a bit; "since Sirius and Melody and Harry are here, you can stay until Lily returns."
Melody nearly cheered, but she contained herself and just smiled.
"Did you bring anything with you?" Dumbledore asked. Melody nodded and told him that their luggage was in the potions dungeon. Dumbledore said he was too tired to get up and walk the whole way, so he Summoned their bags and conjured cots for them to sleep in, and told them he'd find suitable rooms for them tomorrow, but as it was very early, why didn't they all just go to sleep?
Melody and Alex nodded and fell into their beds without bothering to change. Dumbledore smiled at them a moment before retreating back into his bedroom, and discovered that he couldn't get back to sleep.
* * *
Lily's eyes had been open the whole time, but now, as she became un-petrified, they began to see. She was disoriented for a moment, but her eyes focused and she realized she was still in the forest. She felt someone nearby, but couldn't see anything but trees and darkness around her.
Quite suddenly, a black-robed figure appeared in the darkness. Lily screamed, but her shrieks were soon muffled by a black-gloved hand over her mouth. She was trembling, eyes wide with terror, unsure what to do. Her wand! Did she still have her wand?
The figure lifted their other hand and lifted their hood off their head, letting it fall back. Lily's throat tightened and all the muscles in her body tensed as she looked into the face of...
James!
Her entire body sagged with relief, and she removed his hand from her face, wrapping him in a hug, which he gladly returned. She pressed her face against his chest, taking great unsteady breaths and trying to remind herself why she was here.
"Lily," James said softly, pulling away and tucking a strand of his wife's hair behind her ear. "What are you doing here?"
She suddenly remembered. "Saving you!" she cried, rather softly.
"Saving me? From what?" he asked, confused.
"Oh, James, I don't know! I-Melody woke up in the middle of the night and dragged Sirius to Hogwarts and started rambling on about the moon and-oh, James have you seen the moon?" Lily asked, distressed.
"Shh," James said, pulling her close to him. "Calm down. I'm just fine. There's nothing going on here."
"I...James, I have a horrible feeling about you being here. Something's just not right."
"Well, what's wrong? Lily, I can't very well leave without reason!"
"Look, James-you have to leave! You just have to! Please trust me!" She pulled back a little and looked into his eyes. "Please don't make me worry about you James, I do enough already!" she said, putting a hand on his face.
"Lily!" James exclaimed, a pained look on his face. He removed her hand from his cheek and turned his head away. "Don't do this to me! I know you hate me working out here, but-"
"James, that's not it!" Lily insisted. "This is something different! It's-" She cut off as she saw another figure appear nearby, and then another.
James followed her gaze to the two new figures and she felt him tense.
"Isn't this sweet," one of the figures said, and Lily recognized it immediately. She shivered involuntarily and her fingers gripped James's arms tightly. It was Voldemort.
"Apparate with me," James whispered very softly into her ear, barely moving his lips.
"To where?" Lily whispered back. They both knew they weren't going to win this fight.
"Rome."
"Okay," Lily said.
"Okay. When I say 'go', go!" James said.
"Okay," Lily said.
"Avada Kedavra!" Voldemort yelled, and Lily screamed, but James had reacted before Voldemort had finished uttering the spell, and rolled them both out of the way, grabbing his Invisibility Cloak and Lily's broom as they went. The spell hit a tree instead, and all of the leaves drooped and began to fall off as it instantly died.
"Go!" James yelled, and Lily closed her eyes and concentrated, and soon she was lying on a sidewalk instead of a forest floor.
She opened her eyes, breathing hard, and sat up. James sat up next to her, breathing hard as well. Lily was shaking, but she gathered her wits about her and looked around.
"Why Rome?" she asked.
"Because," James said, standing up and offering a hand to Lily, "the minister's here this week, and he's meeting with the Italian Minister of Magic."
"Oh." Lily said as she accepted his hand and pulled herself up. "I guess you're going to have to tell him Voldemort found you."
"That would be the objective," James replied, gathering up his Invisibility Cloak and shoving it into a pocket.
"But why the Ministry?" Lily asked. "What's the Minister of Magic going to do?"
"Besides throw a hissy fit and ask a lot of stupid questions? Nothing, really." James answered, taking her hand and beginning to walk down the street. "It's just to let him know Voldemort's got some way of tracking us, and maybe he'll start worrying more about this war than he has been the last few years. If Barty Crouch were still around..." but then he trailed off and sighed.
Lily had a look on her face. She never had liked Barty Crouch much. "I don't know, James. If Barty Crouch were still around I think a lot more innocent people would be dead right now!"
"Would they?" James asked. "More than Voldemort's been killing himself? Lily, nobody likes war, and everyone tries to avoid making sacrifices as much as possible, and I will admit that Barty did go a little overboard sometimes, but at least we were getting things accomplished! We were just starting to get negotiations going with the centaurs and the mermaids and the veela when he was murdered. The new minister won't even consider negotiating with them. He's convinced that only witches and wizards can fight and win this war, which is all very well for him but I think he's forgotten that Voldemort's been using the dementors and giants all along."
Lily sighed and scuffed her shoe. "I know, James. It's just-God, this war is so complicated! Will we ever reach a place where we can all be happy again, James? Do you think there will ever be an end to this stupid war?"
James shook his head and looked at the ground. "I don't know, Lily. I don't know."
* * *
The next day, as the first year Gryffindors and Slytherins filed into the potions dungeon, they were all very confused. They saw a strange woman sitting on their Potions professor's desk, which some of the students identified as the Dueling Master and others did not.
As it was, the strange woman was young and remarkably beautiful, and carelessly licking a lollipop which appeared to be turning her hair bright green.
Harry and his friends walked in and stopped dead. Harry, because he knew exactly who it was; and his friends, because there was a strange green-haired woman sitting on their professor's desk.
"Melody?" Harry said, bewildered.
"Harry!" Melody said cheerfully, seeing him and waving. "Do come here, would you?"
Harry, quite confused, nodded and walked over to her, leaving his friends to take their seats. He walked over to her, and she removed her sucker (which now appeared to be turning her hair orange) and spoke to him in an undertone.
"Harry, your mom flew off last night to find your father because she thinks he's in trouble and no one knows why. Who knows when she'll be back, but Sirius and I are here, and your sister and Alex snuck in last night and are hiding out somewhere. If you want, after classes end come here and we'll go find them and see if we can't get this sorted out."
This was a lot for Harry's brain to take in at the moment, so he simply nodded and walked back to his seat rather in a daze, a horrible feeling of anxiety in the pit of his stomach. Once seated, he, like the rest of the class, turned his attentions to Melody, who was licking the last bit of her sucker, which was turning her hair blue. The students looked at each other as if to say, "What in the...?", but no one actually spoke.
Melody luxuriously finished her sucker and tossed the stick over her shoulder, not bothering to check whether it landed in a trash can or not.
"Hello!" she bid the class once she seemed prepared. "Since I'm no good with names and this really isn't my class, I'll just skip taking roll and we'll come up with a much more fun way for me to learn your names. Hmm...let's see..." Melody said, thinking. "TAG!" she said suddenly, and some of the students jumped. "That's it!" she said happily. "Magical tag."
The student's looked at each other skeptically.
"Everybody up!" she said, hopping off the desk. "Up, up, up!" The students all got up, muttering to each other. "I want you all to stand out of the way while I get rid of this silly furniture!" Melody said. She had all the students stand by a wall while she zoomed all of the furniture into Lily's private potions dungeon. "There!" she said, when she was done. The dungeon was much more spacious than any of the students had realized. "That's much better!"
"Okay, first, everyone pick a partner!" Melody commanded. The students paired up. "First, we're going to learn a simple spell. The spell will allow us to easily distinguish the 'it' from the rest of the players." The students looked at each other. What in the world was she going to do?
"Puniceus!" Melody cried, putting the spell on herself. She immediately began glowing bright pink---her hair, her clothes, everything. It was as though she'd been covered in radioactive pink bubble gum.
"Now you all try." She said. "Once you perform the spell on someone else, the spell will come off of you. All you have to do to perform the spell is point your wand and say the word. Nothing to it. Go ahead, give it a try!" she said. The students all shrugged and tried. Instantly the room was filled with glowing pink people. Melody beamed. "Wonderful!"
"To reverse the spell, simply point your wand and say 'contrarium'!" Melody instructed, demonstrating, and she no longer looked like a radioactive pink bubble gum woman.
With that, the room was full of regular-looking students. "Wonderful!" Melody said again. "And now, for the rules."
She cleared her throat. "First of all, there will be no base. Just keep running around like chickens with your heads cut off and try not to be tagged 'it'. To be tagged 'it', the 'it' must hit you with the puniceus spell. When you are tagged 'it', you must yell your name loudly three times before trying to tag someone else. You can shout your first name, last name, middle name, whatever, I don't care. I don't care if you feel like calling yourself Froggy today, just yell out a name." The class laughed at that.
"Once you have been tagged and have tagged someone else 'it', go stand behind the red ribbon."
The class was confused. "What red ribbon?" Hermione asked.
"This red ribbon!" Melody said, flicking her wand. A red ribbon flowed out of it and stretched itself widthwise across one end of the room. "So once you have been tagged and tagged someone else, go stand behind the red ribbon. The last person to be tagged 'it' will get something special. I don't know what yet, but oh well. Please tell me none of you have any questions."
"None of us have any questions," Harry assured her. Melody rolled her eyes at him. "Anyway," she said, turning herself pink, "I will be the first 'it'. Professor Cauldwell, Professor Cauldwell, Professor Cauldwell!" she yelled, and the rest of the class shrieked and ran as she started shooting spells at them.
* * *
"Har-ry, Har-ry, Har-ry!" the class chanted.
Fifteen minutes after the game had started, it was almost over. Hermione was desperately trying to put the puniceus spell on Harry, but it wasn't working too well. He was too good at blocking and dodging her spells, and Hermione all in all looked rather frustrated.
Melody was having far too much fun. She enchanted her robes to flash the words 'GO HARRY!' and had changed them to Gryffindor colors. She had a big foam hand on, like one might find at some Muggle sporting event or another, and was making up corny cheers.
"Harry! He's Harry! His name's not Larry! He dodges, jumps and blocks 'em all, even though he's not real tall! Yeah, Harry! Harry! His name's not Larry! Woo-hoo!!"
Parvati and Lavender were giving her strange looks. "Oh, come on, girls, get in the spirit!" Melody exclaimed, pointing her wand at them. Parvati and Lavender shrieked and looked rather embarrassed to suddenly be wearing cheerleading uniforms and holding pom-poms.
"Oh, fine, be anti-spirited!" Melody said, and she changed their outfits back to regular school robes. Both girls looked rather relieved and edged as far away from the crazy professor as they possibly could.
In the end, Melody ended it ("Fine, fine, fine, Harry, I think we've gathered your name, both of you can have a prize!") and, after Melody had returned all the furniture to their rightful places and forgotten most of the students' names, they began class.
* * *
"Do you think the minister will see you right away?" Lily asked as she and James walked down the street after a late breakfast the next morning.
"He has to," James said. "We have to get back to Hogwarts as soon as possible, and we can't spend all day waiting around for the minister!"
Lily nodded. "It's pretty here," she commented rather blandly. James nodded, but neither of them were really paying attention to their surroundings.
"We ought to come here on holi...day," Lily said, but the words died on her lips as she realized this was not possible. She hung her head and looked and stared at the ground, biting her lip. You'd think...after all these years...
James put an arm around her shoulder and squeezed her reassuringly. "Don't worry, Lily flower. It'll be okay. We'll all be able to come here some day."
Lily nodded, but she couldn't help the tears sliding down her cheeks. Her family would never get to be a normal family. Her children were missing out on holidays they should have had already. They were missing Saturday picnics in the park, boring trips to the market...everything. To think, they'd never even been to Diagon Alley before this summer! Of course, she hadn't been until she was eleven either, but then, she hadn't been born into a wizarding family. It was horrible! How could her kids be missing out on so much? The only child they'd ever really interacted with was Alex, and that wasn't much of a childhood at all...
She wrapped her arms around James and they continued to walk rather lopsided down the street, but she didn't care. She needed him desperately right now, with all the horrible thoughts that were swirling around in her head...and she felt guilty, so unbearably guilty for depriving her children of so much...and then she was sobbing, sobbing again, over the same old thing, something she really had no control over but blamed herself for anyway.
"Oh, Lily," James said, and wrapped her up in a hug, and they stopped walking. Lily hated herself horribly in that moment, hated herself for being weak, hated herself for crying, hated herself for unloading all of this on James, for being eternally scared, for worrying about him so much, for not being able to do anything to help anybody, for pitying herself and then crying about pitying herself, and as she kept thinking that she felt so sorry for herself and at the same time was chastising herself for having the audacity to feel sorry for herself when there were so many other people she should be worrying about, and then she began worrying about her children and her husband and her best friends, and blamed herself for them being in danger, and with each new thought came a fresh wave of hot, horrible tears, and she couldn't stop any of it, it was a vicious cycle that kept going round and round, and the only thing that slowed and eventually stopped it was James, and Lily thanked God for giving her James, because without him right now she feared she'd never stop crying.
"Come on, Lily," he said as her flood of tears died down. "Shh," he said gently. Lily composed herself and kissed him, and they kept walking as they had been until they came to a dirty little pub that, once they had given a secret password to the guard outside, proved to be everything but a dirty little pub.
Inside, it looked like a dazzling cathedral with high arched ceilings and stained glass windows.
"This isn't their Ministry building, is it?" Lily whispered in James's ear, confused, for she'd been to many foreign Ministry buildings and none of them looked like this.
"No," James whispered back, shaking his head. "The Ministry building is actually just outside of Florence."
Lily's eyebrows shot up. "Florence? Why Florence?"
James shrugged. "No clue." He walked up to a desk where a rather official-looking secretary was sitting. She was wearing sky blue robes, her black hair slicked back and pulled up into a tight bun. She was wearing red half-moon spectacles with a chain on them and looked as though she'd rather fit in with Madam Pince.
She looked up at James and said 'how may I help you' in Italian. James asked politely if she spoke English, and the witch sighed and rolled her eyes.
"But of course," she said. "Now, how may I help you?"
"I need to speak with the British Minister of Magic," James said. "He's here on business."
"Yes." The witch said, clasping her hands in front of her and looking up at James, not making a move to help him.
"Do you know where he is?" James asked.
"I do not have the authority to disclose that information," the witch said, in a clipped tone. "But if you have a message, I'll be sure to take it down for him." Again, she didn't make a move to help, not even to pick up a quill. This was just too much for Lily.
"Excuse me!" she butted in.
"Lily-" James began.
"Don't 'Lily' me, James," Lily said, giving him a look, and then turned back to the witch, who was looking at her, fake smile plastered on her face. "Look, missy," Lily began, and the witch sat up straighter in her chair; "my husband just asked you a question. And you need to answer him, politely, correctly, and accurately, because he knows important things that you do not. He is also and Auror, which gives him authority over you that he is too modest to use. Now, where is the Minister?" Lily practically yelled. The witch behind the desk had her lips pursed sourly, and looked rather taken aback. James just sighed.
"Go down that hall, to the left, tap three times on the third column to the right of the gold suit of armor and say 'pactor pacifer'."
"Thank you," Lily said, drawing out the words, and then they left.
"Lily, did you have to?" James asked.
"Well, of course I did!" Lily exclaimed, smiling. James smiled back at her, shaking his head.
They reached the third column to the right of the gold statue of armor. James tapped three times on it with his wand, said 'pactor pacifer', and they both began to ascend the staircase that appeared.
* * *
"Okay, today we're going to do something a little different than you're used to!" Melody announced. She had no idea what to do with the class, and she'd never been very good at potions, so she decided to just make it up as she went along. A great idea had popped into her mind following the rather interesting game of tag, and she decided to act upon it.
She picked up a piece of chalk and wrote something on the board, then stepped back to let the class see it.
"Experimenting With Potions!" Melody announced, as though she were a cheesy Muggle game show host. "And you didn't learn it from me!" she added at the end, smiling. The class looked skeptical but rather excited.
And so began the destruction of the potions dungeon.
* * *
"I am bored!" Melody Potter declared.
Alex shrugged. "Don't blame me," he said. "It wasn't my brilliant idea to come here." Melody glared and threw her pillow at him. It landed about a foot away from him. Alex laughed.
"Nice!" he said, laughing again.
Melody got off her bed and stomped over to him, picking up the pillow and whacking him on the head with it.
"So there!" she said, sticking her tongue out at him. He just laughed, easily grabbed the pillow from her grasp, and whacked her with it.
* * *
"Well, that was productive," Lily said once they'd finished talking with the Minister.
"Tell me about it," James said, and then he shrugged and took his wife's hand. "Shall we?" he asked.
"Hogsmeade?" she asked. He nodded, and with their next step they were strolling through the cheery, homey streets of Hogsmeade. They mounted Lily's broom, and, shrouded in James's invisibility cloak, flew back to the school.
* * *
"Well, that was fun, wasn't it?" Melody said after her third lesson that day, covered in an odd-looking green goo and looking rather singed. The students blinked at her, and then, almost in one motion, gathered up all their materials and left.
Melody shrugged. "Oh well," she said to herself, and, ignoring the mess, started prodding the contents of her potion. Classes were done for the day, thank the Lord.
Suddenly, a loud scream came from the doorway, and Melody jumped, pointing her wand reflexively. When she saw who was standing there, she wasn't sure whether to feel relieved or frightened.
"WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO MY CLASSROOM?" Lily shrieked. Melody looked back into her cauldron and prodded it's contents a bit more, which almost looked as though they were beginning to move on their own.
"Created Flubber, I think," Melody said. Lily didn't seem to appreciate the American Muggle movie reference.
"You are never teaching my class again," she said, sounding rather hostile. Melody wasn't too heartbroken. She shrugged and started to help Lily clean up.
"Sorry about the mess," she said. "But I couldn't think of anything to do, so we kind of made it up as we went along."
Lily groaned. "Please tell me you were not teaching Harry's class today!"
"I was teaching Harry's class today!" Melody said happily, cleaning several odd purple spots off the ceiling.
Lily groaned again. "Great. You've been teaching my child the Joys of Melting Cauldrons!"
"Oh, nonsense!" Melody said, waving her hand dismissively. "Making up potions is fun!"
"Yeah, I can see that," Lily said dryly. "You look like you've just run through a brushfire."
Melody shrugged. "Oh well!" she said happily. "I had fun!"
"You are much too much of an optimist," Lily grumped.
"And you, my dear, are much too much of a stick in the mud!" Melody said, pointing her wand pointedly at her best friend.
Lily sighed. "Don't remind me,"
"Mom!" They both whirled to see Harry standing in the doorway.
"Harry!" Lily said, and she rushed over and scooped him up in a hug.
"Mom!" Harry exclaimed, now irritated, as she tried to plant a kiss on his cheek.
"Oh, calm down!" Lily said, but she let him go.
"Mom, what happened?" Harry asked, as he was still rather confused about the whole thing.
"I guess I had better explain..." Lily said. Harry nodded, and so with that they all proceeded to go upstairs and find James, Sirius, Alex, and Melody, and to have a long, complicated conversation, which eventually turned into a pillow fight. After they had all calmed down a bit, they sat in chairs around the fireplace and stared into it, talking rather more quietly and feeling altogether at peace.
* * *
"Ew! Mom, Dad, that's disgusting!" Melody Potter said after looking at her parents, who were kissing in an armchair very near the fire. James and Lily broke their kiss and Lily laughed.
"You'll be doing this someday," she said, "and then it won't seem so disgusting." Melody made a face.
"Ew!" she said. "Yeah, right! I'm never gonna kiss a boy! That's disgusting!"
Lily just laughed again and resumed kissing her husband.
"Ew!" Melody said again, this time echoed by Alex, Harry, and Sirius, who had finally looked up from their Exploding Snap game. The older Melody gave Sirius a Look, and he just smiled at her and went back to his game.
"If they're this bad now, when they're married, I'd have hated to see what they were like when they were dating!" Melody said, making another face. This time it was Sirius who laughed.
"What?" Melody asked, rather agitated.
"Oh, they didn't date," the older Melody said.
The younger Melody raised an eyebrow skeptically. "What, my Dad just proposed to her one day, out of the blue?" she said sarcastically.
"Yeah!" Melody agreed, nodding. "That was pretty much it."
Melody rolled her eyes. "Yeah, right!" she said.
Lily and James broke apart again.
"What was that you were saying about us?" Lily asked.
"Melody says you guys never dated!" the younger Melody said. Lily looked at James, and they turned and said at the same time:
"Nope. We never dated." Then they started laughing. Melody was rather confused, and she looked back at the older Melody questioningly.
The older Melody got an idea. "Okay, do you want to see what they did when they were non-dating? You know, that period where they were falling in love and went everywhere together but still weren't dating?"
Melody laughed and nodded.
"We did not go everywhere together!" Lily protested.
"Oh, no?" Melody challenged, raising an eyebrow. She rolled her eyes. "Puh-lease!"
"We didn't go everywhere together," James said. "Not when we hated each other, which was about as often as when we liked each other."
"You never hated each other," Melody said. "You just used those stupid fights as an excuse to flirt."
"We did not!" Lily protested, but her cheeks went pink and Melody started laughing and Lily buried her head into James's robes. "Oh, leave me alone!"
"Anyway, Sirius and I are going to give you a demonstration of James and Lily's non-dating days!" Melody said, rather dramatically. She dragged Sirius away from his deck of cards.
"Observe!" she said.
"Oh, dear," Lily muttered, but she looked amused nonetheless.
Melody grabbed hold of Sirius and kissed him shamelessly, then, after a few moments, pushed him away rather dramatically and slapped him across the face, then stormed from the room rather huffily.
"Ow! That hurt!" Sirius said.
"Oh, you big baby!" Melody called from the hallway before coming back into the room.
James and the younger Melody were laughing, Alex and Harry weren't paying much attention, and Lily was trying and failing miserably not to laugh.
"I did not do that!" she protested lamely, but her cheeks were flaming. Melody just smiled and plopped down on the couch she had been sitting on before, dragging Sirius down with her.
"Hey, I was playing cards!" he protested, but at that moment the deck proceeded to explode, and Harry and Alex looked rather singed.
"Well, that takes care of that problem!" she said decisively.
"Ah, the days of Lily-slaps!" James said, leaning back in the chair, Lily on his lap. "Those were the good ol' days, weren't they?"
They all laughed.
"Yeah," Lily said, looking at the fire, a rather distant look in her eyes. "The good old days..." she said longingly, her words drifting off into nothing.
Then the moment was ruined by James leaning too far back in the chair and sending both of them tumbling head-over-heels out of it.
A/N: Wasn't that loverly? Yeah, well, anyway, with that done, I'll start working on some other stories, like "Eyes..." and "Ginny's Hogwarts" and yeah...and this story, too! Uh-huh...umm *gulp* yeah. Well, like someone mentioned in some review somewhere, I'm the worst author about posting...I'll work on that. Anyway, here are the thank-yous!
Thank you to:
Hayley (okay, this was a flame, and let me just say that it was NOT the worst flame I've ever received. I'm sorry, you were just giving yourself waaaay too much credit. As a matter of fact, that's the most PATHETIC flame I've ever received. So next time, step it up a bit, hmm?), Dizzy Grl (well geez I wasn't going to really kill Lily and James...I'm just too nice...lol), summersun, Jenn, Digifan, FeatherQuill, pudadingding, none (lol so descriptive, right? And about the H/H thing...I don't know, actually, but I'll think about it...), Sephils (no, sorry, not JK, but thanks so much for the tremendous compliment! ^_^), key, Audrey, Tashi, Laura, Sirius *Padfoot* Black, pickles, catgirl, Danielle, Rose Weasley, zeon, Juliana Black, Kaitlin, Writer Angel, Guess Who (sorry, I'm not good at guessing games, but I am really hyper right now!), Shallan, Julia, Ginny .H. Malfoy, Sarah Lewis, Renyard Al Fiona, Sandra Solaria Dees, Ellie Granger, TigerLily, colee granger, Karen, Nicole (yeah, I know, I'm keeping my promise! ^_^), Zapper, SilverPhoenixWings, Kirst, Katy Burrito, Jazz, Rini, green eyes, sharte (very good description in your review, by the way ^_^ I liked it! I'll have to go read some of your stuff now, uh-huh), AuthorByNight, Avelera, Zepp Hob, LilyChick, Marna, reviewer, Val, Jeanna (thank you, thank you-lol), Star*dust (did ya have any luck with those stories this weekend?-and you stole Martin Luther Chicky Jr! :P (but I think we've been over that, haven't we?)), vmr, Julia McGonagall, Alisha, Brittalia, girls are simply not my kind, Niffler (yeah, I know, Voldy's way too comical, but I'm having way too much fun with this story as it is, lol...anyway, I love your reviews! Keep 'em comin'! ^_^), Lita of Jupiter, Kimmy Larisa, and Eiknlng.
If I forgot anyone, my sincerest apologies!!
*author is truly baffled by the ridiculously large size of her thank you section*
wow. Okay, with the fact that I have more reviewers than I was smart enough to realize, I will start writing the next chapter, like soon-but not right now because, hey, I unfortunately am enrolled in high school and evil Spanish homework calls :P.
So I hope you liked the chapter and please, please review!!! ^_^
Love y'all!
~*Sierra Charm*~
*a-hem* Well. Now that that's over with, here's the story!
Chapter Six
The Good Old Days
Lily ran through the school like a madwoman, clutching her broom so tightly her knuckles were white, which wasn't easy, because her hands were so sweaty she could barely grip it. Images flitted through her mind as she ripped through one secret passageway after another. Once she ran into the caretaker, Filch, but didn't stop or bother to say she was sorry. At this point all she cared about was James.
She reached the top of the tallest tower, mounted her broom and flew. Using several illegal speed charms, she sped off like a fighter plane into the distance. A fighter plane...Lily thought to herself. Bad analogy. It was only bad because it made her think of James. Suddenly, a memory bubbled up from the depths of her brain.
She remembered the stupid fight they'd had when Harry was just a baby, over whether or not Lily should make airplane noises to feed Harry his baby food with. Tears streamed more insistently down her cheeks. She pushed her broom to go faster. There were so, so many memories...
* * *
Harry couldn't sleep. It was impossible. He was too elated. He stared out the window at the half-full moon with a dopey smile on his face. He'd made the Quidditch team. He'd made the Quidditch team! Youngest player in a hundred years!
He suddenly saw something fly across the sky and shadow the moon, but it was only for a moment, and so quick that Harry wasn't sure whether he'd really seen it at all. It looked like it might have resembled someone--or something--on a broomstick, but he had only seen it for an instant, so he couldn't be sure.
He slipped back into his Quidditch daze, completely unaware of what was happening in any other part of the world for that moment, such as Transylvania...or, for that matter, in his own school...
* * *
Sirius rushed up the stairs to Dumbledore's office, ripping through even more secret passageways than Lily had. He ran into Filch, too, and Filch was less than pleased as Sirius tried to scurry along without a word.
"Hey! Come back here!" Filch yelled.
Sirius turned around and grabbed Filch's hand quite unexpectedly, shaking it eagerly. "Filch! 'Ol buddy, 'ol pal! Good to see ya! How's that darling cat of yours? Still flea-infested, I hope? Good! Good! Well, I must be on my way now, I've got children to terrorize!" Sirius said this all very quickly and dashed off again, leaving Filch quite confused.
Sirius made it to the statue in front of Dumbledore's office. He knew the password somewhere in the depths of his mind (he thought) but he wasn't sure if it had been changed or not, so he took out his wand and pressed it against the gargoyle's nose. Its eyes lit up, and Sirius started talking.
"Professor Dumbledore! It's Sirius Black! I need to talk to you!"
The gargoyle worked as something of an intercom for those who knew its secret. After several moments, Dumbledore's sleepy voice crackled back over.
"Come on up," he said, and the gargoyle jumped aside. Sirius entered and climbed the staircase as quickly as he could. He knocked on the doors before he entered, and was somewhat surprised to see Dumbledore sitting at his desk in blue-and-white striped pajamas with a cap to match.
"Hello, Sirius," Dumbledore said cheerfully, although he punctuated the end of the greeting with a large yawn. "Interesting moon tonight, wouldn't you say?" Dumbledore sat back in his chair and put his hands behind his head, looking out the window as if he hadn't a care in the world. Sirius could see his feet poking out around the edge of the desk and noted that they were covered in a particularly fine pair of wool socks.
"Ah, yes," Dumbledore said, noting Sirius's gaze. "Lovely socks, aren't they? Lily got them for me last Christmas. I always told her you can never have too many wool socks. I must admit I am rather fond of them."
Sirius smiled. This was part of why he liked Dumbledore so much. Any other wizard of Dumbledore's power and reputation would most likely be strutting around the office with a military command demanding to know why they were awaken at such an hour of the night. Dumbledore, however, was content to sit and talk about the interesting moon and pairs of wool socks before getting around to the real matter at hand. And he was incredibly modest, too. Sirius imagined if he ever became famous, powerful, and well-respected, he'd want to become something like Dumbledore.
"Now, what did you want to talk about?" he asked.
"Well," Sirius said grimly. "Lily's rushed off in the middle of the night to go find James, who she and her daughter Melody seem to think is in very big trouble. They got very worried about the state of the moon."
Dumbledore nodded and got up from his chair. He walked over to the window and gazed out of it thoughtfully, hands clasped behind his back. He turned to Sirius. "You know what this means, don't you?" he asked.
Sirius sat up straighter in his chair, tensing and preparing for the worst possible statement ever. "What?" he asked.
Dumbledore turned back to the window. "We're going to need a new Potions master."
* * *
"ALEX! Alex, WAKE UP!" Melody yelled, running up the stairs and into Harry's room, where Alex was sleeping. She shook him awake, and, disoriented, he rolled over and fell onto the floor.
"Ow," Alex said, getting up.
"Alex, we have to go to Hogwarts!" Melody said. "Pack up a suitcase! We're leaving right now!"
Alex blinked. "Have you gone mad?"
"No!" Melody said furiously. "I have not gone mad! We just need to get to Hogwarts!"
"Why do we have to go to Hogwarts in the middle of the night?" Alex asked sleepily, sitting down on his bed.
"Because!" Melody said, as if that explained everything. She yanked Alex's suitcase out from its position at the foot of Harry's bed and opened it. It was still full of clothes and stuff. "You haven't unpacked yet?" she asked, looking up at Alex. He shrugged.
"First of all, do I ever unpack? Second of all, where am I supposed to put it?"
"Harry's closet is empty, ya know." Melody said. "He took all his clothes to Hogwarts with him!"
"He did?"
"Yeah!" Melody said, walking over to Harry's closet and yanking open the doors. There was nothing left on the clothes rack except hangers. "Observe!" she said.
"But that's not important right now!" she rambled on. "I'm going to go pack a suitcase! We have to go to Hogwarts!"
She left the room before Alex could even ask 'Why?' again. He shook his head after her and flopped back down on Harry's bed. "She's mad," he said, and rolled over, fully intending on going back to sleep.
"And don't you dare fall back asleep!" Melody yelled from her bedroom.
Alex sat back up. "Bugger," he said, and dragged his suitcase downstairs, setting it in front of the fireplace. Several minutes later Melody came clunking down the stairs with a suitcase that was bulging.
"Okay, let's go," she said, reaching for the Floo powder.
"Why are we going again?"
"Because," Melody said, throwing some Floo into the fire. "My dad's in trouble!" she said, and stepped into the fireplace. "Potions dungeon at Hogwarts!" Alex heard her yell before she disappeared.
Alex sighed and followed her example.
* * *
Melody Cauldwell was not a happy person. Here she was, at one in the morning, stumbling through the hallways in a thin nightgown and a bathrobe when she should be asleep. She made it to the gargoyle in front of Dumbledore's office and muttered "Ben and Jerry's" (Dumbledore had spent the summer in America and discovered 'Ben & Jerry's' ice cream), walking through the opening after the gargoyle had jumped aside.
She knocked on the door to Dumbledore's office and wasn't particularly surprised to find that, upon her entry, she saw Sirius Black and the professor playing a particularly fine game of ping-pong. Melody gave them a 'you-really-are-pathetic-little-boys' look, shook her head, and sat down in a chair.
"Good morning, Melody," Dumbledore said, not taking his eyes off the ping-pong game.
Melody yawned. "I don't know if I'd call it a particularly good morning, Professor," she said. "I was, after all, dragged out of bed at one in the morning and all I seem to be doing is bearing witness to a rather boring ping-pong game."
Sirius missed the ping-pong ball and it suddenly exploded. Melody jumped slightly. "As you were saying?" Sirius asked. Melody relaxed, and her eyes went from round back to their half-asleep position. She just shook her head and yawned again.
With a 'pop!' the ping-pong table disappeared, and Dumbledore walked over and sat at his desk. Sirius sat down next to Melody.
"What's wrong?" Melody asked.
"Well, Lily appears to have run off in the night, and we are short a potions master." Dumbledore said.
"WHAT? WHY?" Melody asked, shocked.
Dumbledore turned to Sirius, who nodded and started explaining. "Lily's gone off after James. She thinks he's in trouble."
"What's gone wrong?" Melody asked, worry lines etched all over her face.
"We're not sure. Melody woke up in the middle of the night and came downstairs shrieking that her dad was in trouble. She woke me up and we came to Hogwarts, where we found Lily. She saw the moon, felt something was wrong, and flew off to who knows where. Now we have no idea where either James or Lily are."
"And we're short a Potions master," Dumbledore finished. "Which is part of why we interrupted your beauty sleep,"
"I never said I was getting beauty sleep," Melody said defensively.
"Well, I suppose that's a good thing then, as I believe if you were any prettier, Mr. Black would most likely fall out of his chair," Dumbledore said with a twinkle in his eye.
Melody quickly looked over at Sirius, who averted his gaze from her and turned a quite brilliant shade of red. Melody started giggling, turning a little pink herself.
Dumbledore looked upon James, Lily, Melody, Sirius, and Remus as something of his children. At the very least he felt some responsibility for them. He'd taken notice of them since their first year at Hogwarts-Melody, Sirius, Remus, and James because they had a knack for getting in trouble and Lily because she was exceptionally bright. They had all become Prefects, and soon after that, best friends (although Lily and James liked to pretend they hated each other), mostly because of Melody and the fact that she was Lily's best friend.
They were an amazing group of people, and Dumbledore held them all in the greatest respect. But that didn't mean he exempted them from a fair amount of teasing. Melody and Sirius, for example, needed all the teasing and help they could get before they would finally admit they liked each other. They were being more stubborn than James and Lily, and considering James and Lily's Romance That Wasn't, that was quite a feat.
Sirius and Melody were two of the best-looking people Dumbledore had ever seen (which, considering all the people Dumbledore had met in his life, was saying something), and if they ever got married, they would have disgustingly beautiful children. And considering the way Sirius and Melody had been looking at each other for the past ten years, they were bound to get married sometime, if not soon.
Nobody could blame Melody for being cautious about stepping into another relationship after her awful marriage. To this day, Dumbledore wasn't sure what had compelled her to marry Lucifer Malfoy. He was much older than her, they didn't appear to have anything in common, and...well, Dumbledore supposed it was her choice.
"Getting back to the matter at hand," Dumbledore said. "We need a new Potions master." He looked very pointedly at Melody.
"Oh, no!" she said. "I am not teaching Potions class!"
"We don't have very many options," Dumbledore said. "Unless you'd rather Professor Vector did it. That's very possible. He's good at potions. However," Dumbledore continued, noting the sour look on Melody's face at the mention of Professor Vector, "I think that Lily would rather have a close friend look over her potions for her, wouldn't you say?"
Melody sighed. "But I'm the Dueling Master! How am I supposed to teach potions and dueling at the same time and keep all of it straight? I mean, the times wouldn't conflict, I suppose, but that's a lot to keep track of!"
"We can always have Sirius assist with dueling." At this, Sirius's eyes sparked.
"Dueling is fun!" he said, en evil-looking smile spreading across his face.
"Oh no," Melody said. "You are not going to take over my dueling club. I am going to give you explicit instructions!"
"Sure," Sirius said, avoiding her gaze, still smiling. Melody just laughed. He wouldn't do anything she wouldn't do.
"So it's arranged, then?" Dumbledore asked. Melody and Sirius nodded. "I believe you'll find Lily's class schedule in her office, but we can worry about that in the morning. Good night."
"Good night," Sirius and Melody said together. They all rose and left, quite tired.
* * *
Lily should have been tired, but her heart was pumping the blood too fast through her veins for her to get drowsy. She took hold of the "L" pendant at her neck and closed her eyes, hoping for some sort of sign as to where James could possibly be. When he had given her the necklace they hadn't been dating, and the fact that they were friends seemed subject to change at any time. Even though they weren't that close (or at least weren't willing to admit they were), Lily suspected he had put some sort of charm on it to link him to her, because whenever they were apart, it seemed like the necklace could lead her to him.
She felt a tug in her gut and a tingle where her fingers were touching the pendant. The necklace was telling her where to go. She opened her eyes with new determination and flew into the night, pushing the broom to go faster than ever.
* * *
Lily landed in a forest somewhere, dismounting and drawing her cloak close around her, hoping it would help her blend into the night. There was a town nearby, but she couldn't very well just fly in at who-knows-when in the morning and start knocking on doors, especially since she knew there would be Aurors there keeping watch over the skies for Death Eaters, because even though Death Eaters didn't usually fly, the Ministry was developing a system to track when and where Death Eaters Apparated. It was all very complicated.
It was very dark in the forest, and she would have loved to light her wand, but she didn't for fear of being seen by the wrong people or being seen and mistaken for someone on the wrong side.
She crept through the forest as carefully and quietly as she could, which wasn't working very well because she could see very little moonlight through the trees and kept stepping on twigs and snapping them. She winced every time she did it and nearly gave up trying to be quiet, but decided she wasn't going to risk anything.
For a moment Lily wondered why she wasn't just Apparating into the town, and decided she really didn't know, except for the fact that she really wouldn't know where to Apparate to inside the town and might end up landing in somebody's house or something, and that certainly wouldn't be good. Then she wondered why she hadn't Apparated to this forest in the first place, and realized that she hadn't known where she was going in the first place, and that was why she had flown. She was starting to make sense to herself, yes she was!
Okay, Lily thought, shaking her head. Maybe I'm a little bit more tired than I'm giving myself credit for...
She suddenly got the sense she was being watched and jerked her head instinctively, then hit herself mentally for being so stupid. Now, if someone really was watching her, they most likely knew her exact location.
Before she could think of anything to do, she heard a voice call out a spell into the night.
"Stupefy!"
She gasped, and tried to jump out of the way, but it was too late. She just moved herself even more into the path of the spell, and then there was nothing.
* * *
This. Was not. Good.
Alex and Melody looked at each other and gulped. They both looked back at the strange old man who was looking for some form or another in his desk. He seemed to find what he was looking for and set the forms on his desk. He stood over Alex and Melody, hands clasped behind his back.
"Out of bed, eh?" He said to them. "Thought you'd just take a midnight stroll? Forget the school rules, did we?"
"Oh, no, we-" Melody began, trying to explain they weren't students, but the old man cut her off, which, she thought after a moment, was probably a good thing, considering she'd probably be in more trouble if the old man knew she wasn't supposed to be anywhere near this school, let alone roaming the halls at night looking for Alex's mom.
"Enough! I don't need excuses, I just need names. What are your names?" He asked them, staring at both of them hard.
"Shouldn't I be appointed a lawyer before I answer these kind of questions?" Alex challenged.
Melody glared at him, a sour look on her face. He had spent far too many holidays with Muggles in America.
The old man looked confused and slightly angry. "Tell me your name," he barked, "or it'll be the Headmaster's office for you!"
Melody didn't think this seemed like such a bad idea. She knew Dumbledore, and he'd be much easier to talk to than whoever this was.
She stood up and crossed her arms defiantly. "We're not telling you anything!" she said.
The old man went rather red. "That's enough! We're going to see the Headmaster!" He grabbed one of Melody's arms rather roughly and dragged her out of his office. Alex shrugged and followed the pair of them.
The old man led (or dragged, in Melody's case) them upstairs to a statue of a gargoyle and said "Ben and Jerry's". The gargoyle sprang aside, much to the shock of Alex and Melody, and they then proceeded up a staircase to a set of double doors, which the old man knocked on.
They waited for several minutes for Professor Dumbledore to answer. He did, looking slightly sleepy but more awake than one might be at three o'clock in the morning. He was wearing blue-and-white striped pajamas with a matching cap and fuzzy blue slippers.
"Mr. Filch, how can I help you?" Dumbledore asked. Melody looked at him, amazed. Who had the energy to be polite at three o'clock in the morning?
"These two were roaming the halls and they've refused to tell me their names!" Dumbledore looked at Alex and Melody and nodded.
"Very well. Leave them with me, and I will deal with them accordingly. Good night, Mr. Filch."
Mr. Filch nodded and left, and Dumbledore beckoned Melody and Alex into his office.
"I take it you two have heard about Lily running off in the night?" Dumbledore asked, sitting down in his chair and yawning. Melody nodded, but Alex looked rather confused. He opened his mouth to ask, but Melody stepped on his toe and hissed,
"I'll explain later!"
Dumbledore looked rather amused. Melody cleared her throat and spoke.
"I was the one who woke up and thought my dad was in danger in the first place."
Dumbledore nodded. "Well, Godric's Hollow is really the safest place for the both of you," he said.
Melody leaned back in her chair and groaned.
"However," Dumbledore continued, and Melody's ears perked up a bit; "since Sirius and Melody and Harry are here, you can stay until Lily returns."
Melody nearly cheered, but she contained herself and just smiled.
"Did you bring anything with you?" Dumbledore asked. Melody nodded and told him that their luggage was in the potions dungeon. Dumbledore said he was too tired to get up and walk the whole way, so he Summoned their bags and conjured cots for them to sleep in, and told them he'd find suitable rooms for them tomorrow, but as it was very early, why didn't they all just go to sleep?
Melody and Alex nodded and fell into their beds without bothering to change. Dumbledore smiled at them a moment before retreating back into his bedroom, and discovered that he couldn't get back to sleep.
* * *
Lily's eyes had been open the whole time, but now, as she became un-petrified, they began to see. She was disoriented for a moment, but her eyes focused and she realized she was still in the forest. She felt someone nearby, but couldn't see anything but trees and darkness around her.
Quite suddenly, a black-robed figure appeared in the darkness. Lily screamed, but her shrieks were soon muffled by a black-gloved hand over her mouth. She was trembling, eyes wide with terror, unsure what to do. Her wand! Did she still have her wand?
The figure lifted their other hand and lifted their hood off their head, letting it fall back. Lily's throat tightened and all the muscles in her body tensed as she looked into the face of...
James!
Her entire body sagged with relief, and she removed his hand from her face, wrapping him in a hug, which he gladly returned. She pressed her face against his chest, taking great unsteady breaths and trying to remind herself why she was here.
"Lily," James said softly, pulling away and tucking a strand of his wife's hair behind her ear. "What are you doing here?"
She suddenly remembered. "Saving you!" she cried, rather softly.
"Saving me? From what?" he asked, confused.
"Oh, James, I don't know! I-Melody woke up in the middle of the night and dragged Sirius to Hogwarts and started rambling on about the moon and-oh, James have you seen the moon?" Lily asked, distressed.
"Shh," James said, pulling her close to him. "Calm down. I'm just fine. There's nothing going on here."
"I...James, I have a horrible feeling about you being here. Something's just not right."
"Well, what's wrong? Lily, I can't very well leave without reason!"
"Look, James-you have to leave! You just have to! Please trust me!" She pulled back a little and looked into his eyes. "Please don't make me worry about you James, I do enough already!" she said, putting a hand on his face.
"Lily!" James exclaimed, a pained look on his face. He removed her hand from his cheek and turned his head away. "Don't do this to me! I know you hate me working out here, but-"
"James, that's not it!" Lily insisted. "This is something different! It's-" She cut off as she saw another figure appear nearby, and then another.
James followed her gaze to the two new figures and she felt him tense.
"Isn't this sweet," one of the figures said, and Lily recognized it immediately. She shivered involuntarily and her fingers gripped James's arms tightly. It was Voldemort.
"Apparate with me," James whispered very softly into her ear, barely moving his lips.
"To where?" Lily whispered back. They both knew they weren't going to win this fight.
"Rome."
"Okay," Lily said.
"Okay. When I say 'go', go!" James said.
"Okay," Lily said.
"Avada Kedavra!" Voldemort yelled, and Lily screamed, but James had reacted before Voldemort had finished uttering the spell, and rolled them both out of the way, grabbing his Invisibility Cloak and Lily's broom as they went. The spell hit a tree instead, and all of the leaves drooped and began to fall off as it instantly died.
"Go!" James yelled, and Lily closed her eyes and concentrated, and soon she was lying on a sidewalk instead of a forest floor.
She opened her eyes, breathing hard, and sat up. James sat up next to her, breathing hard as well. Lily was shaking, but she gathered her wits about her and looked around.
"Why Rome?" she asked.
"Because," James said, standing up and offering a hand to Lily, "the minister's here this week, and he's meeting with the Italian Minister of Magic."
"Oh." Lily said as she accepted his hand and pulled herself up. "I guess you're going to have to tell him Voldemort found you."
"That would be the objective," James replied, gathering up his Invisibility Cloak and shoving it into a pocket.
"But why the Ministry?" Lily asked. "What's the Minister of Magic going to do?"
"Besides throw a hissy fit and ask a lot of stupid questions? Nothing, really." James answered, taking her hand and beginning to walk down the street. "It's just to let him know Voldemort's got some way of tracking us, and maybe he'll start worrying more about this war than he has been the last few years. If Barty Crouch were still around..." but then he trailed off and sighed.
Lily had a look on her face. She never had liked Barty Crouch much. "I don't know, James. If Barty Crouch were still around I think a lot more innocent people would be dead right now!"
"Would they?" James asked. "More than Voldemort's been killing himself? Lily, nobody likes war, and everyone tries to avoid making sacrifices as much as possible, and I will admit that Barty did go a little overboard sometimes, but at least we were getting things accomplished! We were just starting to get negotiations going with the centaurs and the mermaids and the veela when he was murdered. The new minister won't even consider negotiating with them. He's convinced that only witches and wizards can fight and win this war, which is all very well for him but I think he's forgotten that Voldemort's been using the dementors and giants all along."
Lily sighed and scuffed her shoe. "I know, James. It's just-God, this war is so complicated! Will we ever reach a place where we can all be happy again, James? Do you think there will ever be an end to this stupid war?"
James shook his head and looked at the ground. "I don't know, Lily. I don't know."
* * *
The next day, as the first year Gryffindors and Slytherins filed into the potions dungeon, they were all very confused. They saw a strange woman sitting on their Potions professor's desk, which some of the students identified as the Dueling Master and others did not.
As it was, the strange woman was young and remarkably beautiful, and carelessly licking a lollipop which appeared to be turning her hair bright green.
Harry and his friends walked in and stopped dead. Harry, because he knew exactly who it was; and his friends, because there was a strange green-haired woman sitting on their professor's desk.
"Melody?" Harry said, bewildered.
"Harry!" Melody said cheerfully, seeing him and waving. "Do come here, would you?"
Harry, quite confused, nodded and walked over to her, leaving his friends to take their seats. He walked over to her, and she removed her sucker (which now appeared to be turning her hair orange) and spoke to him in an undertone.
"Harry, your mom flew off last night to find your father because she thinks he's in trouble and no one knows why. Who knows when she'll be back, but Sirius and I are here, and your sister and Alex snuck in last night and are hiding out somewhere. If you want, after classes end come here and we'll go find them and see if we can't get this sorted out."
This was a lot for Harry's brain to take in at the moment, so he simply nodded and walked back to his seat rather in a daze, a horrible feeling of anxiety in the pit of his stomach. Once seated, he, like the rest of the class, turned his attentions to Melody, who was licking the last bit of her sucker, which was turning her hair blue. The students looked at each other as if to say, "What in the...?", but no one actually spoke.
Melody luxuriously finished her sucker and tossed the stick over her shoulder, not bothering to check whether it landed in a trash can or not.
"Hello!" she bid the class once she seemed prepared. "Since I'm no good with names and this really isn't my class, I'll just skip taking roll and we'll come up with a much more fun way for me to learn your names. Hmm...let's see..." Melody said, thinking. "TAG!" she said suddenly, and some of the students jumped. "That's it!" she said happily. "Magical tag."
The student's looked at each other skeptically.
"Everybody up!" she said, hopping off the desk. "Up, up, up!" The students all got up, muttering to each other. "I want you all to stand out of the way while I get rid of this silly furniture!" Melody said. She had all the students stand by a wall while she zoomed all of the furniture into Lily's private potions dungeon. "There!" she said, when she was done. The dungeon was much more spacious than any of the students had realized. "That's much better!"
"Okay, first, everyone pick a partner!" Melody commanded. The students paired up. "First, we're going to learn a simple spell. The spell will allow us to easily distinguish the 'it' from the rest of the players." The students looked at each other. What in the world was she going to do?
"Puniceus!" Melody cried, putting the spell on herself. She immediately began glowing bright pink---her hair, her clothes, everything. It was as though she'd been covered in radioactive pink bubble gum.
"Now you all try." She said. "Once you perform the spell on someone else, the spell will come off of you. All you have to do to perform the spell is point your wand and say the word. Nothing to it. Go ahead, give it a try!" she said. The students all shrugged and tried. Instantly the room was filled with glowing pink people. Melody beamed. "Wonderful!"
"To reverse the spell, simply point your wand and say 'contrarium'!" Melody instructed, demonstrating, and she no longer looked like a radioactive pink bubble gum woman.
With that, the room was full of regular-looking students. "Wonderful!" Melody said again. "And now, for the rules."
She cleared her throat. "First of all, there will be no base. Just keep running around like chickens with your heads cut off and try not to be tagged 'it'. To be tagged 'it', the 'it' must hit you with the puniceus spell. When you are tagged 'it', you must yell your name loudly three times before trying to tag someone else. You can shout your first name, last name, middle name, whatever, I don't care. I don't care if you feel like calling yourself Froggy today, just yell out a name." The class laughed at that.
"Once you have been tagged and have tagged someone else 'it', go stand behind the red ribbon."
The class was confused. "What red ribbon?" Hermione asked.
"This red ribbon!" Melody said, flicking her wand. A red ribbon flowed out of it and stretched itself widthwise across one end of the room. "So once you have been tagged and tagged someone else, go stand behind the red ribbon. The last person to be tagged 'it' will get something special. I don't know what yet, but oh well. Please tell me none of you have any questions."
"None of us have any questions," Harry assured her. Melody rolled her eyes at him. "Anyway," she said, turning herself pink, "I will be the first 'it'. Professor Cauldwell, Professor Cauldwell, Professor Cauldwell!" she yelled, and the rest of the class shrieked and ran as she started shooting spells at them.
* * *
"Har-ry, Har-ry, Har-ry!" the class chanted.
Fifteen minutes after the game had started, it was almost over. Hermione was desperately trying to put the puniceus spell on Harry, but it wasn't working too well. He was too good at blocking and dodging her spells, and Hermione all in all looked rather frustrated.
Melody was having far too much fun. She enchanted her robes to flash the words 'GO HARRY!' and had changed them to Gryffindor colors. She had a big foam hand on, like one might find at some Muggle sporting event or another, and was making up corny cheers.
"Harry! He's Harry! His name's not Larry! He dodges, jumps and blocks 'em all, even though he's not real tall! Yeah, Harry! Harry! His name's not Larry! Woo-hoo!!"
Parvati and Lavender were giving her strange looks. "Oh, come on, girls, get in the spirit!" Melody exclaimed, pointing her wand at them. Parvati and Lavender shrieked and looked rather embarrassed to suddenly be wearing cheerleading uniforms and holding pom-poms.
"Oh, fine, be anti-spirited!" Melody said, and she changed their outfits back to regular school robes. Both girls looked rather relieved and edged as far away from the crazy professor as they possibly could.
In the end, Melody ended it ("Fine, fine, fine, Harry, I think we've gathered your name, both of you can have a prize!") and, after Melody had returned all the furniture to their rightful places and forgotten most of the students' names, they began class.
* * *
"Do you think the minister will see you right away?" Lily asked as she and James walked down the street after a late breakfast the next morning.
"He has to," James said. "We have to get back to Hogwarts as soon as possible, and we can't spend all day waiting around for the minister!"
Lily nodded. "It's pretty here," she commented rather blandly. James nodded, but neither of them were really paying attention to their surroundings.
"We ought to come here on holi...day," Lily said, but the words died on her lips as she realized this was not possible. She hung her head and looked and stared at the ground, biting her lip. You'd think...after all these years...
James put an arm around her shoulder and squeezed her reassuringly. "Don't worry, Lily flower. It'll be okay. We'll all be able to come here some day."
Lily nodded, but she couldn't help the tears sliding down her cheeks. Her family would never get to be a normal family. Her children were missing out on holidays they should have had already. They were missing Saturday picnics in the park, boring trips to the market...everything. To think, they'd never even been to Diagon Alley before this summer! Of course, she hadn't been until she was eleven either, but then, she hadn't been born into a wizarding family. It was horrible! How could her kids be missing out on so much? The only child they'd ever really interacted with was Alex, and that wasn't much of a childhood at all...
She wrapped her arms around James and they continued to walk rather lopsided down the street, but she didn't care. She needed him desperately right now, with all the horrible thoughts that were swirling around in her head...and she felt guilty, so unbearably guilty for depriving her children of so much...and then she was sobbing, sobbing again, over the same old thing, something she really had no control over but blamed herself for anyway.
"Oh, Lily," James said, and wrapped her up in a hug, and they stopped walking. Lily hated herself horribly in that moment, hated herself for being weak, hated herself for crying, hated herself for unloading all of this on James, for being eternally scared, for worrying about him so much, for not being able to do anything to help anybody, for pitying herself and then crying about pitying herself, and as she kept thinking that she felt so sorry for herself and at the same time was chastising herself for having the audacity to feel sorry for herself when there were so many other people she should be worrying about, and then she began worrying about her children and her husband and her best friends, and blamed herself for them being in danger, and with each new thought came a fresh wave of hot, horrible tears, and she couldn't stop any of it, it was a vicious cycle that kept going round and round, and the only thing that slowed and eventually stopped it was James, and Lily thanked God for giving her James, because without him right now she feared she'd never stop crying.
"Come on, Lily," he said as her flood of tears died down. "Shh," he said gently. Lily composed herself and kissed him, and they kept walking as they had been until they came to a dirty little pub that, once they had given a secret password to the guard outside, proved to be everything but a dirty little pub.
Inside, it looked like a dazzling cathedral with high arched ceilings and stained glass windows.
"This isn't their Ministry building, is it?" Lily whispered in James's ear, confused, for she'd been to many foreign Ministry buildings and none of them looked like this.
"No," James whispered back, shaking his head. "The Ministry building is actually just outside of Florence."
Lily's eyebrows shot up. "Florence? Why Florence?"
James shrugged. "No clue." He walked up to a desk where a rather official-looking secretary was sitting. She was wearing sky blue robes, her black hair slicked back and pulled up into a tight bun. She was wearing red half-moon spectacles with a chain on them and looked as though she'd rather fit in with Madam Pince.
She looked up at James and said 'how may I help you' in Italian. James asked politely if she spoke English, and the witch sighed and rolled her eyes.
"But of course," she said. "Now, how may I help you?"
"I need to speak with the British Minister of Magic," James said. "He's here on business."
"Yes." The witch said, clasping her hands in front of her and looking up at James, not making a move to help him.
"Do you know where he is?" James asked.
"I do not have the authority to disclose that information," the witch said, in a clipped tone. "But if you have a message, I'll be sure to take it down for him." Again, she didn't make a move to help, not even to pick up a quill. This was just too much for Lily.
"Excuse me!" she butted in.
"Lily-" James began.
"Don't 'Lily' me, James," Lily said, giving him a look, and then turned back to the witch, who was looking at her, fake smile plastered on her face. "Look, missy," Lily began, and the witch sat up straighter in her chair; "my husband just asked you a question. And you need to answer him, politely, correctly, and accurately, because he knows important things that you do not. He is also and Auror, which gives him authority over you that he is too modest to use. Now, where is the Minister?" Lily practically yelled. The witch behind the desk had her lips pursed sourly, and looked rather taken aback. James just sighed.
"Go down that hall, to the left, tap three times on the third column to the right of the gold suit of armor and say 'pactor pacifer'."
"Thank you," Lily said, drawing out the words, and then they left.
"Lily, did you have to?" James asked.
"Well, of course I did!" Lily exclaimed, smiling. James smiled back at her, shaking his head.
They reached the third column to the right of the gold statue of armor. James tapped three times on it with his wand, said 'pactor pacifer', and they both began to ascend the staircase that appeared.
* * *
"Okay, today we're going to do something a little different than you're used to!" Melody announced. She had no idea what to do with the class, and she'd never been very good at potions, so she decided to just make it up as she went along. A great idea had popped into her mind following the rather interesting game of tag, and she decided to act upon it.
She picked up a piece of chalk and wrote something on the board, then stepped back to let the class see it.
"Experimenting With Potions!" Melody announced, as though she were a cheesy Muggle game show host. "And you didn't learn it from me!" she added at the end, smiling. The class looked skeptical but rather excited.
And so began the destruction of the potions dungeon.
* * *
"I am bored!" Melody Potter declared.
Alex shrugged. "Don't blame me," he said. "It wasn't my brilliant idea to come here." Melody glared and threw her pillow at him. It landed about a foot away from him. Alex laughed.
"Nice!" he said, laughing again.
Melody got off her bed and stomped over to him, picking up the pillow and whacking him on the head with it.
"So there!" she said, sticking her tongue out at him. He just laughed, easily grabbed the pillow from her grasp, and whacked her with it.
* * *
"Well, that was productive," Lily said once they'd finished talking with the Minister.
"Tell me about it," James said, and then he shrugged and took his wife's hand. "Shall we?" he asked.
"Hogsmeade?" she asked. He nodded, and with their next step they were strolling through the cheery, homey streets of Hogsmeade. They mounted Lily's broom, and, shrouded in James's invisibility cloak, flew back to the school.
* * *
"Well, that was fun, wasn't it?" Melody said after her third lesson that day, covered in an odd-looking green goo and looking rather singed. The students blinked at her, and then, almost in one motion, gathered up all their materials and left.
Melody shrugged. "Oh well," she said to herself, and, ignoring the mess, started prodding the contents of her potion. Classes were done for the day, thank the Lord.
Suddenly, a loud scream came from the doorway, and Melody jumped, pointing her wand reflexively. When she saw who was standing there, she wasn't sure whether to feel relieved or frightened.
"WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO MY CLASSROOM?" Lily shrieked. Melody looked back into her cauldron and prodded it's contents a bit more, which almost looked as though they were beginning to move on their own.
"Created Flubber, I think," Melody said. Lily didn't seem to appreciate the American Muggle movie reference.
"You are never teaching my class again," she said, sounding rather hostile. Melody wasn't too heartbroken. She shrugged and started to help Lily clean up.
"Sorry about the mess," she said. "But I couldn't think of anything to do, so we kind of made it up as we went along."
Lily groaned. "Please tell me you were not teaching Harry's class today!"
"I was teaching Harry's class today!" Melody said happily, cleaning several odd purple spots off the ceiling.
Lily groaned again. "Great. You've been teaching my child the Joys of Melting Cauldrons!"
"Oh, nonsense!" Melody said, waving her hand dismissively. "Making up potions is fun!"
"Yeah, I can see that," Lily said dryly. "You look like you've just run through a brushfire."
Melody shrugged. "Oh well!" she said happily. "I had fun!"
"You are much too much of an optimist," Lily grumped.
"And you, my dear, are much too much of a stick in the mud!" Melody said, pointing her wand pointedly at her best friend.
Lily sighed. "Don't remind me,"
"Mom!" They both whirled to see Harry standing in the doorway.
"Harry!" Lily said, and she rushed over and scooped him up in a hug.
"Mom!" Harry exclaimed, now irritated, as she tried to plant a kiss on his cheek.
"Oh, calm down!" Lily said, but she let him go.
"Mom, what happened?" Harry asked, as he was still rather confused about the whole thing.
"I guess I had better explain..." Lily said. Harry nodded, and so with that they all proceeded to go upstairs and find James, Sirius, Alex, and Melody, and to have a long, complicated conversation, which eventually turned into a pillow fight. After they had all calmed down a bit, they sat in chairs around the fireplace and stared into it, talking rather more quietly and feeling altogether at peace.
* * *
"Ew! Mom, Dad, that's disgusting!" Melody Potter said after looking at her parents, who were kissing in an armchair very near the fire. James and Lily broke their kiss and Lily laughed.
"You'll be doing this someday," she said, "and then it won't seem so disgusting." Melody made a face.
"Ew!" she said. "Yeah, right! I'm never gonna kiss a boy! That's disgusting!"
Lily just laughed again and resumed kissing her husband.
"Ew!" Melody said again, this time echoed by Alex, Harry, and Sirius, who had finally looked up from their Exploding Snap game. The older Melody gave Sirius a Look, and he just smiled at her and went back to his game.
"If they're this bad now, when they're married, I'd have hated to see what they were like when they were dating!" Melody said, making another face. This time it was Sirius who laughed.
"What?" Melody asked, rather agitated.
"Oh, they didn't date," the older Melody said.
The younger Melody raised an eyebrow skeptically. "What, my Dad just proposed to her one day, out of the blue?" she said sarcastically.
"Yeah!" Melody agreed, nodding. "That was pretty much it."
Melody rolled her eyes. "Yeah, right!" she said.
Lily and James broke apart again.
"What was that you were saying about us?" Lily asked.
"Melody says you guys never dated!" the younger Melody said. Lily looked at James, and they turned and said at the same time:
"Nope. We never dated." Then they started laughing. Melody was rather confused, and she looked back at the older Melody questioningly.
The older Melody got an idea. "Okay, do you want to see what they did when they were non-dating? You know, that period where they were falling in love and went everywhere together but still weren't dating?"
Melody laughed and nodded.
"We did not go everywhere together!" Lily protested.
"Oh, no?" Melody challenged, raising an eyebrow. She rolled her eyes. "Puh-lease!"
"We didn't go everywhere together," James said. "Not when we hated each other, which was about as often as when we liked each other."
"You never hated each other," Melody said. "You just used those stupid fights as an excuse to flirt."
"We did not!" Lily protested, but her cheeks went pink and Melody started laughing and Lily buried her head into James's robes. "Oh, leave me alone!"
"Anyway, Sirius and I are going to give you a demonstration of James and Lily's non-dating days!" Melody said, rather dramatically. She dragged Sirius away from his deck of cards.
"Observe!" she said.
"Oh, dear," Lily muttered, but she looked amused nonetheless.
Melody grabbed hold of Sirius and kissed him shamelessly, then, after a few moments, pushed him away rather dramatically and slapped him across the face, then stormed from the room rather huffily.
"Ow! That hurt!" Sirius said.
"Oh, you big baby!" Melody called from the hallway before coming back into the room.
James and the younger Melody were laughing, Alex and Harry weren't paying much attention, and Lily was trying and failing miserably not to laugh.
"I did not do that!" she protested lamely, but her cheeks were flaming. Melody just smiled and plopped down on the couch she had been sitting on before, dragging Sirius down with her.
"Hey, I was playing cards!" he protested, but at that moment the deck proceeded to explode, and Harry and Alex looked rather singed.
"Well, that takes care of that problem!" she said decisively.
"Ah, the days of Lily-slaps!" James said, leaning back in the chair, Lily on his lap. "Those were the good ol' days, weren't they?"
They all laughed.
"Yeah," Lily said, looking at the fire, a rather distant look in her eyes. "The good old days..." she said longingly, her words drifting off into nothing.
Then the moment was ruined by James leaning too far back in the chair and sending both of them tumbling head-over-heels out of it.
A/N: Wasn't that loverly? Yeah, well, anyway, with that done, I'll start working on some other stories, like "Eyes..." and "Ginny's Hogwarts" and yeah...and this story, too! Uh-huh...umm *gulp* yeah. Well, like someone mentioned in some review somewhere, I'm the worst author about posting...I'll work on that. Anyway, here are the thank-yous!
Thank you to:
Hayley (okay, this was a flame, and let me just say that it was NOT the worst flame I've ever received. I'm sorry, you were just giving yourself waaaay too much credit. As a matter of fact, that's the most PATHETIC flame I've ever received. So next time, step it up a bit, hmm?), Dizzy Grl (well geez I wasn't going to really kill Lily and James...I'm just too nice...lol), summersun, Jenn, Digifan, FeatherQuill, pudadingding, none (lol so descriptive, right? And about the H/H thing...I don't know, actually, but I'll think about it...), Sephils (no, sorry, not JK, but thanks so much for the tremendous compliment! ^_^), key, Audrey, Tashi, Laura, Sirius *Padfoot* Black, pickles, catgirl, Danielle, Rose Weasley, zeon, Juliana Black, Kaitlin, Writer Angel, Guess Who (sorry, I'm not good at guessing games, but I am really hyper right now!), Shallan, Julia, Ginny .H. Malfoy, Sarah Lewis, Renyard Al Fiona, Sandra Solaria Dees, Ellie Granger, TigerLily, colee granger, Karen, Nicole (yeah, I know, I'm keeping my promise! ^_^), Zapper, SilverPhoenixWings, Kirst, Katy Burrito, Jazz, Rini, green eyes, sharte (very good description in your review, by the way ^_^ I liked it! I'll have to go read some of your stuff now, uh-huh), AuthorByNight, Avelera, Zepp Hob, LilyChick, Marna, reviewer, Val, Jeanna (thank you, thank you-lol), Star*dust (did ya have any luck with those stories this weekend?-and you stole Martin Luther Chicky Jr! :P (but I think we've been over that, haven't we?)), vmr, Julia McGonagall, Alisha, Brittalia, girls are simply not my kind, Niffler (yeah, I know, Voldy's way too comical, but I'm having way too much fun with this story as it is, lol...anyway, I love your reviews! Keep 'em comin'! ^_^), Lita of Jupiter, Kimmy Larisa, and Eiknlng.
If I forgot anyone, my sincerest apologies!!
*author is truly baffled by the ridiculously large size of her thank you section*
wow. Okay, with the fact that I have more reviewers than I was smart enough to realize, I will start writing the next chapter, like soon-but not right now because, hey, I unfortunately am enrolled in high school and evil Spanish homework calls :P.
So I hope you liked the chapter and please, please review!!! ^_^
Love y'all!
~*Sierra Charm*~