Chapter 3: Changes, Good and Bad
Sophia woke up the next morning with a kink in her back and still feeling tired. It took her a moment to figure out why this was. Then she remembered that she had slept on a couch in the Gryfindor common room that night, and that she had trouble getting to sleep because she was worried about Mr. and Mrs. Evans.
Sophia sat up and stretched, impatient to hear from Dumbledor. A door opened, and Sophia turned hoping it was Dumbledor. This hope was soon dashed by the appearance of a boy, around her age with flaming red hair.
"Hello," said the boy, "I've never seen you here before."
"I don't normally spend my night on common room couches," Sophia said irritably.
"Sorry, don't have to bite my head off."
"I guess I'm sorry too. I'm just a bit on edge."
The boy nodded.
"You don't have any idea how to get to Dumbledor's office, do you?"
"Yeah, go out the door and keep turning left till you get to the statue of the gargoyle."
"Thanks," Sophia said, getting up. She walked towards a closet.
"Maybe I better show you," the red headed boy said.
The boy turned Sophia around and led her out of the portrait hole to the gargoyle
that guarded Dumbledor's office. As they approached it, it opened.
"Oh, Sophia, there you are," Dumbledor said, "I was just going to find you." He
turned to the boy.
"Thank you, Mr. Weasely. You may go. Sophia come along."
Bill (as you may or may not have guessed by now) turned back toward Griffindor
tower.
Dumbledor led Sophia into his office. He motioned for Sophia to sit down.
Dumbledor himself had barely sat down when Sophia blurted out, "How are Mr.
and Mrs. Evans."
Dumbledor looked very grave. "I didn't want to start our conversation this way, Sophia, but the Evans are dead." Sophia began to sob, and Dumbledor let her have it out. Eventually, the sob subsided and Dumbledor spoke again.
"Sophia, there is another matter I wish to address with you. In light of resent events, I think we need to step up you training. We will start you in Defence Against the Dark Arts. I have secured Auror Alastor Moody for this. I think you should also learn how to disguise yourself. This is very advanced Transfiguration, so we will also step up our lessons in that area too. So we have enough time for this, we will drop potions and Herbology."
Sophia just nodded.
Lily and Petunia came back for a few weeks to clear out the Evans' palace. In the next couple of weeks, the funeral was said, the Evans' house was sold to a young couple called the Grangers, and Lily paid many visits to Sophia.
On one of these visits James cam a long, this wasn't unusual. Every one, except Peter again (Sophia was starting to get the impression that he didn't like her), came to visit Sophia while they were in the neighborhood. This time, though, it was for a special announcement.
"Sophia, we're engaged," Lily said happily.
"That's great," Sophia said. "When's the wedding?"
"We haven't set a date yet," James said, his voice sounding a little dark. "I proposed right before all of this."
"It's not your fault honey," Lily said putting her hand on his shoulder.
"Sophia, when we set a date, you'll be one of the first ones I'll owl. And speaking of owls," Lily lifted something she had brought. It turned out to be a grey owl.
Sophia looked at it for a while.
"Aren't you going to name it?" James asked.
"Hedwig," Sophia declared.
The rest of the year went by. Sophia learned things in transfiguration and DADA that no normal 11 year-old, or 12 year-old when she reached that age in May, knew. Professor (or Auror) Alastor Moody was a tough teacher. Before Sophia was 13 she learned how to disarm, block all curses block able, and deal with 2 of the three unforgivable curses (as you all know the third one you can't "deal" with).
The year brought more bad news (Kiki was killed in a potions explosion). It also brought some good news, which came in the form of an owl from Lily one September afternoon. James and she had set the date for the wedding. Better yet Lily wanted Sophia to be her maid of honor.
"Evan though you are a lot younger than us," Lily said latter to Sophia, "you are like my best friend, and more of a sister to me than Petunia ever was."
Sophia accepted graciously and began to see more of Lily than she ever had, even when Lily was at home. She began coming over to the Smalls or take Sophia to her house to discus wedding plans. Cynthia Black, Sirius' sister-in-law, was suppose to be the other brides made, but she began to get to big for her dress. Originally, she thought that she was just eating too much until she went to the doctor. It turned out that she was going to have twins.
Lily, having run out of options, called her sister to be the other bride's maid. Petunia accepted, rather ungraciously. And to add insult to injury, Petunia found this the proper time to mention to Lily that she had married to a man by the name of Vernon Dursley, and left Lily in the dark about it because she "Didn't want Lily or any of her freak friends to show up."
Lily spent a while crying about that ("Evan if we don't get alone she could have at least told me.") And Sophia and James did their best to comfort her while throwing dirty looks (which Remus and Sirius joined in on) at Petunia for the rest of the week.
The days until the wedding dwindled down, and soon, Sophia was at the church ready to help Lily get ready. She found Lily in the room usually used for brides to get ready before weddings. She was sitting in the middle of the floor, dress on but back undone, hair a mess, crying.
"Lily, what's wrong?" Sophia asked.
Lily turned to Sophia. " What if this is all wrong?"
"Do you love him?" Lily nodded. "Could you spend the rest of eternity with him?" Lily nodded. "Then I declare you, Lily Evans, ready to be Mrs. James Potter." Lily gave a little smile. "Now let's fix you up nice and pretty."
Sophia helped Lily with the rest of her dress and veil. Once they were done, Lily helped Sophia with the finishing touches on hers. Somewhere in there, Petunia showed up and got ready.
"I think we're done," Lily declared. "Petunia, will you be a dear and see how the boys are doing."
"No way," Petunia said bitterly.
Sophia, feeling the tension mounting, volunteered to check on the guys. She knocked on the door of the room they were in.
"Every one descent in there?" she called.
"Yes," came Sirius' reply.
Sophia opened up the door and let out a gasp. Yes, they all had pants and shirts on, but beyond that it was a total mess.
Having grown up in wizarding families, they were having an extremely bad time with ties and cumber buns and over coats. During the fitting, with store people to help them, they were okay but know they were helpless.
"Oh man," Sophia said, "Let me help you." After about 15 minutes she had them all sorted out.
"One last thing," Sophia said finishing up with Remus. "James, open your mouth."
Sophia produced a small spray bottle and squirted some in James' mouth. James chocked.
"What is that stuff?" James asked.
"Breath freshener. This is the type of kiss a girl dreams about all her life, and you don't want Lily to remember you having bad breath."
"How is the soon to be Mrs. James Potter?" Remus asked.
"A little anxious, but fine," Sophia replied.
"I can't go through with this!" James suddenly shouted.
"This is like the eighth time today," Sirius said.
"James, you can," Remus said.
"No I can't."
"Yes you can," Remus and Sirius said together.
"No I can't."
"Yes you can."
"No I can't."
"Stop it, boys," Sophia said before Remus and Sirius could get in their reply. "Let me handle it."
Sophia sat facing James. "James, do you love Lily?" James nodded. "Could you spend the rest of eternity with her?" James nodded again. "Then, James Potter, I declare you ready to be Lily's loving husband."
James looked at Sophia and smiled. "Thanks, I needed that."
"Any time," Sophia smiled back. "Now we better get this wedding started before one of them has a nervous break down."
The wedding was beautiful. Dumbledor gave Lily away, because her dad was gone. Sophia had to pretend she didn't know him.
At the reception, Sophia snuck away for awhile. Remus and Sirius had to wait to question her though, because it was time for the toast.
"May I have your attention please," Sirius boomed. The hall went silent exception for a few presisntant talkers. "Thank you.
"I originally planned a speech that would send Lily and James several shades of scarlet, but I decided against that for two reasons. First Lily would probably kill me or Jimmie boy here, and second something better for this speech happened today.
"Today, while James, Remus and I were trying to get ready, Sophia came in like an angle of mercy and helped us get ready. It was right after she was done with this that James went into his eighth panic attack of the day. Remus and I tried to argue some sense into him, but Sophia cut in and said something that calmed James down better than we could.
"She asked him two questions, 'Do you love Lily?' and 'Can you spend the rest of eternity with her?' of course the answer was yes. So here's to James and Lily, together for all eternity."
Every one raised their glasses.
Then Sophia stood up. "I guess it's my turn.
"This is a quote from Moulin Rouge. 'The greatest thing you can ever learn it to love and be loved in return.'
"These two really make being in love seem great. Lily never seems happier than when she's with James and vise versa I would guess. So here's to Lily and James, may they all ways remember what a great lesson love is."
Dinner was soon eaten, the cake was cut, and the tables were cleared for the dance. Sophia danced one dance with the wedding party, but then spent the next several with her camera taking pictures.
Sirius, though, put a firm end to that. He took her camera, gave it to Remus and told Sophia if she didn't get out there and have some fun he wouldn't develop the pictures for her.
So Sophia spent the rest of the night dancing with him, Remus, and two boys with flaming red hair, and once with James when Sirius cut in on him and Lily. After that dance, Lily, Sophia, James, and Sirius practically fell in chairs next to each other.
"Lily, I might just steel James from you, he's such a great dancer," Sophia joked.
"And I might just let her because she let's me lead," James joked back.
The four of them started laughing. Suddenly there was a bright flash. The four of them rubbed their eyes to find Remus holding Sophia's camera.
"Sorry," he said, "I just thought this would be the best time to get a picture of the four of you."
Remus sat down next too Sophia. Sophia yawned and put her head on Remus's shoulder.
"Getting tired?" he asked.
"I've been up since 5 this morning," Sophia yawned.
"Don't fall asleep yet. We still have to clean up," Sirius said.
"Then talk about something to keep me awake," Sophia said.
"Why wasn't Peter here today?" Remus asked.
"He said he had something important to do," James said.
"Like what? We had this planned for a year," Sirius replied.
"I don't know," James said.
"I said something to keep me awake, not to fall asleep faster," Sophia said.
"Okay," Sirius said with the glint in his eyes that meant trouble. "Why did you sneak out earlier?"
"It looks like everybody is almost gone. Why don't we take the presents to the car?" Sophia asked.
James, Lily, Sirius and Remus looked at Sophia curiously but let it drop.
Sophia woke up the next morning with a kink in her back and still feeling tired. It took her a moment to figure out why this was. Then she remembered that she had slept on a couch in the Gryfindor common room that night, and that she had trouble getting to sleep because she was worried about Mr. and Mrs. Evans.
Sophia sat up and stretched, impatient to hear from Dumbledor. A door opened, and Sophia turned hoping it was Dumbledor. This hope was soon dashed by the appearance of a boy, around her age with flaming red hair.
"Hello," said the boy, "I've never seen you here before."
"I don't normally spend my night on common room couches," Sophia said irritably.
"Sorry, don't have to bite my head off."
"I guess I'm sorry too. I'm just a bit on edge."
The boy nodded.
"You don't have any idea how to get to Dumbledor's office, do you?"
"Yeah, go out the door and keep turning left till you get to the statue of the gargoyle."
"Thanks," Sophia said, getting up. She walked towards a closet.
"Maybe I better show you," the red headed boy said.
The boy turned Sophia around and led her out of the portrait hole to the gargoyle
that guarded Dumbledor's office. As they approached it, it opened.
"Oh, Sophia, there you are," Dumbledor said, "I was just going to find you." He
turned to the boy.
"Thank you, Mr. Weasely. You may go. Sophia come along."
Bill (as you may or may not have guessed by now) turned back toward Griffindor
tower.
Dumbledor led Sophia into his office. He motioned for Sophia to sit down.
Dumbledor himself had barely sat down when Sophia blurted out, "How are Mr.
and Mrs. Evans."
Dumbledor looked very grave. "I didn't want to start our conversation this way, Sophia, but the Evans are dead." Sophia began to sob, and Dumbledor let her have it out. Eventually, the sob subsided and Dumbledor spoke again.
"Sophia, there is another matter I wish to address with you. In light of resent events, I think we need to step up you training. We will start you in Defence Against the Dark Arts. I have secured Auror Alastor Moody for this. I think you should also learn how to disguise yourself. This is very advanced Transfiguration, so we will also step up our lessons in that area too. So we have enough time for this, we will drop potions and Herbology."
Sophia just nodded.
Lily and Petunia came back for a few weeks to clear out the Evans' palace. In the next couple of weeks, the funeral was said, the Evans' house was sold to a young couple called the Grangers, and Lily paid many visits to Sophia.
On one of these visits James cam a long, this wasn't unusual. Every one, except Peter again (Sophia was starting to get the impression that he didn't like her), came to visit Sophia while they were in the neighborhood. This time, though, it was for a special announcement.
"Sophia, we're engaged," Lily said happily.
"That's great," Sophia said. "When's the wedding?"
"We haven't set a date yet," James said, his voice sounding a little dark. "I proposed right before all of this."
"It's not your fault honey," Lily said putting her hand on his shoulder.
"Sophia, when we set a date, you'll be one of the first ones I'll owl. And speaking of owls," Lily lifted something she had brought. It turned out to be a grey owl.
Sophia looked at it for a while.
"Aren't you going to name it?" James asked.
"Hedwig," Sophia declared.
The rest of the year went by. Sophia learned things in transfiguration and DADA that no normal 11 year-old, or 12 year-old when she reached that age in May, knew. Professor (or Auror) Alastor Moody was a tough teacher. Before Sophia was 13 she learned how to disarm, block all curses block able, and deal with 2 of the three unforgivable curses (as you all know the third one you can't "deal" with).
The year brought more bad news (Kiki was killed in a potions explosion). It also brought some good news, which came in the form of an owl from Lily one September afternoon. James and she had set the date for the wedding. Better yet Lily wanted Sophia to be her maid of honor.
"Evan though you are a lot younger than us," Lily said latter to Sophia, "you are like my best friend, and more of a sister to me than Petunia ever was."
Sophia accepted graciously and began to see more of Lily than she ever had, even when Lily was at home. She began coming over to the Smalls or take Sophia to her house to discus wedding plans. Cynthia Black, Sirius' sister-in-law, was suppose to be the other brides made, but she began to get to big for her dress. Originally, she thought that she was just eating too much until she went to the doctor. It turned out that she was going to have twins.
Lily, having run out of options, called her sister to be the other bride's maid. Petunia accepted, rather ungraciously. And to add insult to injury, Petunia found this the proper time to mention to Lily that she had married to a man by the name of Vernon Dursley, and left Lily in the dark about it because she "Didn't want Lily or any of her freak friends to show up."
Lily spent a while crying about that ("Evan if we don't get alone she could have at least told me.") And Sophia and James did their best to comfort her while throwing dirty looks (which Remus and Sirius joined in on) at Petunia for the rest of the week.
The days until the wedding dwindled down, and soon, Sophia was at the church ready to help Lily get ready. She found Lily in the room usually used for brides to get ready before weddings. She was sitting in the middle of the floor, dress on but back undone, hair a mess, crying.
"Lily, what's wrong?" Sophia asked.
Lily turned to Sophia. " What if this is all wrong?"
"Do you love him?" Lily nodded. "Could you spend the rest of eternity with him?" Lily nodded. "Then I declare you, Lily Evans, ready to be Mrs. James Potter." Lily gave a little smile. "Now let's fix you up nice and pretty."
Sophia helped Lily with the rest of her dress and veil. Once they were done, Lily helped Sophia with the finishing touches on hers. Somewhere in there, Petunia showed up and got ready.
"I think we're done," Lily declared. "Petunia, will you be a dear and see how the boys are doing."
"No way," Petunia said bitterly.
Sophia, feeling the tension mounting, volunteered to check on the guys. She knocked on the door of the room they were in.
"Every one descent in there?" she called.
"Yes," came Sirius' reply.
Sophia opened up the door and let out a gasp. Yes, they all had pants and shirts on, but beyond that it was a total mess.
Having grown up in wizarding families, they were having an extremely bad time with ties and cumber buns and over coats. During the fitting, with store people to help them, they were okay but know they were helpless.
"Oh man," Sophia said, "Let me help you." After about 15 minutes she had them all sorted out.
"One last thing," Sophia said finishing up with Remus. "James, open your mouth."
Sophia produced a small spray bottle and squirted some in James' mouth. James chocked.
"What is that stuff?" James asked.
"Breath freshener. This is the type of kiss a girl dreams about all her life, and you don't want Lily to remember you having bad breath."
"How is the soon to be Mrs. James Potter?" Remus asked.
"A little anxious, but fine," Sophia replied.
"I can't go through with this!" James suddenly shouted.
"This is like the eighth time today," Sirius said.
"James, you can," Remus said.
"No I can't."
"Yes you can," Remus and Sirius said together.
"No I can't."
"Yes you can."
"No I can't."
"Stop it, boys," Sophia said before Remus and Sirius could get in their reply. "Let me handle it."
Sophia sat facing James. "James, do you love Lily?" James nodded. "Could you spend the rest of eternity with her?" James nodded again. "Then, James Potter, I declare you ready to be Lily's loving husband."
James looked at Sophia and smiled. "Thanks, I needed that."
"Any time," Sophia smiled back. "Now we better get this wedding started before one of them has a nervous break down."
The wedding was beautiful. Dumbledor gave Lily away, because her dad was gone. Sophia had to pretend she didn't know him.
At the reception, Sophia snuck away for awhile. Remus and Sirius had to wait to question her though, because it was time for the toast.
"May I have your attention please," Sirius boomed. The hall went silent exception for a few presisntant talkers. "Thank you.
"I originally planned a speech that would send Lily and James several shades of scarlet, but I decided against that for two reasons. First Lily would probably kill me or Jimmie boy here, and second something better for this speech happened today.
"Today, while James, Remus and I were trying to get ready, Sophia came in like an angle of mercy and helped us get ready. It was right after she was done with this that James went into his eighth panic attack of the day. Remus and I tried to argue some sense into him, but Sophia cut in and said something that calmed James down better than we could.
"She asked him two questions, 'Do you love Lily?' and 'Can you spend the rest of eternity with her?' of course the answer was yes. So here's to James and Lily, together for all eternity."
Every one raised their glasses.
Then Sophia stood up. "I guess it's my turn.
"This is a quote from Moulin Rouge. 'The greatest thing you can ever learn it to love and be loved in return.'
"These two really make being in love seem great. Lily never seems happier than when she's with James and vise versa I would guess. So here's to Lily and James, may they all ways remember what a great lesson love is."
Dinner was soon eaten, the cake was cut, and the tables were cleared for the dance. Sophia danced one dance with the wedding party, but then spent the next several with her camera taking pictures.
Sirius, though, put a firm end to that. He took her camera, gave it to Remus and told Sophia if she didn't get out there and have some fun he wouldn't develop the pictures for her.
So Sophia spent the rest of the night dancing with him, Remus, and two boys with flaming red hair, and once with James when Sirius cut in on him and Lily. After that dance, Lily, Sophia, James, and Sirius practically fell in chairs next to each other.
"Lily, I might just steel James from you, he's such a great dancer," Sophia joked.
"And I might just let her because she let's me lead," James joked back.
The four of them started laughing. Suddenly there was a bright flash. The four of them rubbed their eyes to find Remus holding Sophia's camera.
"Sorry," he said, "I just thought this would be the best time to get a picture of the four of you."
Remus sat down next too Sophia. Sophia yawned and put her head on Remus's shoulder.
"Getting tired?" he asked.
"I've been up since 5 this morning," Sophia yawned.
"Don't fall asleep yet. We still have to clean up," Sirius said.
"Then talk about something to keep me awake," Sophia said.
"Why wasn't Peter here today?" Remus asked.
"He said he had something important to do," James said.
"Like what? We had this planned for a year," Sirius replied.
"I don't know," James said.
"I said something to keep me awake, not to fall asleep faster," Sophia said.
"Okay," Sirius said with the glint in his eyes that meant trouble. "Why did you sneak out earlier?"
"It looks like everybody is almost gone. Why don't we take the presents to the car?" Sophia asked.
James, Lily, Sirius and Remus looked at Sophia curiously but let it drop.