Chapter 20 ~ First-Year Drama
She heard another scream from next door, louder, and together with the other girls. Lily jumped up out of bed, pulling Cecil with her. It was her sister's room, after all. Cecil rubbed her eyes as they both stumbled out the door and down the hall. "What's wrong?" she grumbled. "Please tell me there is a reason you just dragged me out of bed in the middle of the night."
"There is. I heard a scream from your sister's dorm. I thought you should come." Cecil's eyes widened.
"Genna? Oh no… Oh no, oh no, oh no…" She hurried off down the hall and ran in through the open door. "Oh my goodness," she breathed, standing stock-still in the doorway.
"Cecil, Cecil I cant see, what is it?" The screams had stopped, yet that didn't make Lily any less nervous. Cecil moved and Lily finally got a look inside. "Oh my goodness."
The walls were slashed; the curtains on one of the beds ripped from the brass rungs, the mirror trespassed by a thousand tiny cracks that meandered across its surface. And on one of the beds were all five girls, huddled together in one big group, hands latched tightly together, all whimpering.
"Is everyone okay?" Cecil called cautiously, as if simply speaking was a crime. It seemed that way, the eerie night leaking in through the open window.
"Cecil, is that you?" Genna said and poked her head out of the first-year mass and ran over to her sister, jumping on her. As Genna was comforted the rest of the girls looked sullen with piteous jealousy. Lily went over and sat on the bed.
"You all are okay, aren't you?" she asked gently.
"Yeah I'm fine," Emily replied bravely. Lily knew the girl was scared, and she admired that.
"Me too," Clarice said.
"And me three," Alexis added. Katie was silent.
"Do any of you know what happened?" Lily asked simply to get them talking.
"This is Genna's bed," Clarice said. "This is where he came."
"Who came?" Lily questioned nervously. She heard Genna start to cry from behind her. 'I guess he didn't come to wish her a happy stay,' she thought.
"The man," Emily said. "The man who broke in."
"I think he came in through the window," Alexis speculated. "It's open," she added, pointing. 'But the door was too,' Lily thought.
"No, he definitely came in through the door, and went out the window," Clarice said. "You can tell because someone mussed up everything underneath the window, as if they were trying to reach the window to get out."
"That could have happened coming in, too. He could have dropped and fell on the stuff and messed it up that way," Alexis pointed out. Lily was a little surprised by their educated banter. She didn't think she was this smart as a first-year. She knew she wasn't that smart as a first-year, or at least not as self-assured. 'Maybe this is what the Ravenclaws were like,' she wondered.
"Wait," Emily said loudly, regaining Lily's full attention. "How would he have gotten up to the window to get in?" The other two girls were silent at this, and as Katie stayed quiet the only sound for a second was Genna's muffled sobs.
"Hello?" someone called from the doorway. "I heard screams…" Lily craned to see who it was but her back was turned to the door and the four girls had cradled around her as if to form a tiny box. She couldn't really move, let alone see.
"It's a boy!" Alexis exclaimed.
"Ooohh, he's cute," Emily giggled. "Do you know him Lily?"
"I can't see much right now," she answered, then, in a louder voice, asked, "Who is it?"
"Cant recognize my voice? I'm hurt," the voice, obviously male, said. Lily grinned, she might not have recognized the voice at first, but she knew that tone anywhere.
"Hello, James," she said with a sing-song voice, mocking him. She managed to disentangle herself from the other girls and stand up. Genna returned to them with Cecil, who took over Lily's comforting duties as she talked with James. They moved to the other side of the room.
"What happened in here?" he asked.
"All I have got so far is that someone broke in and then obviously trashed the room. I don't know what else, except for he trashed Genna's bed over everyone else's, though it might have been a coincidence." James sighed.
"Nothing seems to be normal this year. First the Sorting Hat, now this. We chose a good year to be Head Boy and Girl, don't you think?" he said sarcastically. "None of the other guys were convinced that the screams were anything more than a slumber party or something."
"Well, I can't really blame them," Lily said. "It is late, and we're all tired."
"Sirius's exact words were, 'Well, get on your little Dudley Do-Right Head Boy way or shut the hell up, because I am tired and will knock you senseless as soon as I can focus enough to see you.'" Lily laughed softly.
"Sirius is remarkably verbal for so early in the morning."
"No, it was combined with a lot more grunting and expletives."
"Cecil's clone, minus the curse words," she said with a smile. James smiled back and she shivered. "Cold in here with the window open isn't it?" she asked, rubbing her arms uncomfortably.
"You're not wearing much," James commented.
"Well, thanks for noticing. I was sleeping, you know," she added with a scowl. "You're not dressed up like an Eskimo yourself."
"I thought enough to put on a shirt before I came over." An image of James without a shirt on flitted across her mind. She shook her head.
"What does that have to do with anything? I am already wearing a shirt." This conversation was getting uncomfortable. James didn't have anything to say back to that, so he just moved away and examined the floor. Seconds later, he reappeared holding something in his hand.
"Take a look at this," he said, opening his hand. There lay a dagger, her dagger. Well, not hers, exactly, but the one that should have been lying in her trunk, safely packed away as it had been when she came on the train to Hogwarts. James's eyes were full of worry; Lily had gone pale in just a few seconds. "Lily, what's wrong? What's the matter?" Her eyes stayed transfixed on the knife in his hands, the gold stars on the handle twinkling. He held her shoulders and shook her gently, his contact immediately breaking her transfixion. She breathed in deeply.
"Nothing, nothing's wrong," she assured him. "Can I just look at the dagger for a moment?" James was apprehensive, but Lily adamantly held out her hand. James handed it over. She turned away from him a little and examined the short blade. She ran her finger across the flat edge. As she pulled her finger away it started to bleed, but she made no reaction. No blood remained on the surface of the knife, no blemish left to taint the perfect sheen of metal.
"What's that?" James said quietly, over her shoulder. He tilted the knife slightly, his hand overlapping hers, and lit his wand. The glare showed an inscription. 'How come I never noticed that before?' she wondered.
"You and me, dark and light,
Together reveal the hidden fright,
Trapped so long, bounded there,
Forever in the night-chilled air.
Unleash, unlock, divine a way,
To meet with thee on said day,
For bound to me are you, my dear,
Sewn together with the threads of fear."
Lily was silent. James's eerie reading of the inscription gave her the chills. "What does it mean?" she questioned to the air, rather night-chilled at the moment, she noted with apprehension.
"It's talking to you, isn't it Lily?" Katie, who had seemed to appear from thin air, accused. "The knife, it's talking to you!" Lily, panicked and afraid of exactly how much truth was in her assumption, was rendered speechless.
"More likely, Katie," James aid, "is that the inscription on the knife refers to the man who was here tonight. He is almost definitely the one the poem spoke of." Lily sighed with relief, Katie looked disappointed.
"I still think that you are wrong, even if you are Head Boy," Katie muttered spitefully. James straightened and chuckled.
"Everyone is entitled to their opinion, I suppose," he mumbled under his breath. Lily smiled.
"She'll come around," she answered back quietly.
"If you two are quite done whispering about me I'd like to know just what you all are going to do about this mess," Katie said with bitter resentment. Lily took a quick peek to see how the other girls were doing. Cecil and Genna had joined them on the bed and then became audience to the conversation that Lily, James, and Katie were having across the room. Lily hid the knife behind her back and nudged James slightly to make him aware of their spectators. They then both moved where everyone could see them.
"McGonagall should be here soon, she always knows what's going on in Gryffindor Tower. If she doesn't get here soon I'll go for someone, though," James volunteered. "Until then we will just wait it out and see what we can do about cleaning this place up a bit."
"How do we know that he won't come back?" Alexis asked.
"He won't come again, not when we have our guard up," Lily assured her. She first moved to the mirror. "Reparo!" she said forcefully. From the outside in every little crack filled itself in, returning the mirror to its original luster. Behind her Emily said "Wow," very softly, making Lily smile. She was good at that charm.
Just then, though, McGonagall and Dumbledore, both still fully robed, appeared at the doorway, both looking a bit ruffled.
"What happened here?" McGonagall demanded huffily. "And why are all you students up? And this dormitory! It's a mess!" she continued. "Explain yourselves!"
"Minerva," Dumbledore intervened, "I'm sure there is a very logical explanation," he said soflty, turning to face Lily and James. Then, with a bit of force he added, "And we would both very much like to hear it."
"Someone attacked our room!" Clarice said hastily, a comment that was followed by a stifled gasp from McGonagall and a concentrated frown fm Dumbledore.
"Why, this requires some immediate action. "Professor, stay here, assist the children. Cecil, please help. James, Lily – follow me." McGonagall didn't even protest. Lily and James, after a moment's hesitation, followed. Dumbledore paused and turned around. "Lily, James, please, go fetch your cloaks. You will be chilled without them." Without a second thought she rushed into her dorm, stopping briefly to realize that she had only been wearing a rather, well, scanty pajamas. 'They aren't really that bad,' Lily tried to convince herself as she fastened her cloak. 'It's just such a drastic difference from my everyday robes that it seems like it. I dress in shorts and a tank top in the summer sometimes. This isn't all that different," she reaffirmed as she caught up to James and Dumbledore, sliding into some shoes she had grabbed while in her room.
As they walked down the corridors Dumbledore explained. "Judging from the scene the attacker most definitely came in through the door and left out the window. That means that he had to have had some means of escape. We will go outside in an attempt to track him," Dumbledore said quickly. Lily marveled at his quick judgment of the situation.
"There was a knife that was left behind, if you think it will help you track him, or anything of the sort," James said. "Lily has it." She took out the knife and handed it to the older man. His eyes widened.
"Ancient magic. Alpha magic," He muttered as he continued to walk. "This will help immensely. Where exactly was this found?" He took a sharp right and Lily found herself outside the Hogwarts walls. James looked excited, probably at finding out something new about the castle.
"Oh, um, it was on the floor in the dorm. It was right in plain view. I am pretty sure that's what was used to slash the walls."
"Quite right, quite right," Dumbledore said. Lily was torn on whether or not to mention what had happened in Knockturn Alley the other week. It just didn't seem… right. She couldn't explain it. "Anything else, Lily?" She shook her head, not trusting herself to speak. Dumbledore stopped and looked up. "Well, there's the first-year girls's window."
"Yes, I can see the light coming through the window," James said. Lily looked upwards.
"Oh, me too," Lily said as she spotted the open window. "Headmaster Dumbledore?" Lily asked to get his attention, "How are you going to track him? I mean, I know you have the knife, but how much help can a knife be?"
"It's a relatively simple spell. There are bonds connecting a magical artifact of this caliber to whoever has wielded it. There should be a bright, concentrated black light that should show the bonds between the knife and the person and the person who wielded it." Lily was a little clueless about how a light could be black but she kept her mouth shut. "You'll have to move back, unless you want to suffer a bit of backlash. Without a word Lily and James did what they were told.
Dumbledore raised his arms, wand in one hand, and knife in the other. Lily could feel the power surge around her. Vision was blurred, as if she was watching everything through a fire that created heat ripples. Except for Dumbledore was nothing like a heat source, he seemed to draw energy from her, not pleasantly supply it like the Gryffindor fireplace. His wand was like a black hole that shimmered—Lily suddenly knew what he meant by black light. She realized he hadn't been talking about those weird Muggle lights that Petunia had awhile ago. Dumbledore yelled a word that made her cover her ears and shut her eyes. When she opened them she saw the light explode from Dumbledore's wand, traveling quickly up to the window of the girls dorm. It hovered there, and then split in two. One beam stayed and twirled a little, but the other had a more direct course.
It happened to be hurtling straight at Lily.
* * *
When she woke up Dumbledore was kneeling a few feet away, but James was right in front of her. Well, there was two of him, but she guessed that was just a side effect. James's faces were full of worry, but when he realized she was awake his face showed relief. "Dumbledore, she's awake!" Dumbledore bustled over quickly.
"Oh good, at least you are awake. I was starting to get a little worried about you, Lily. You must have been out for at least a minute." Lily sat halfway up. Now there was three of James. She reached out for the nearest one and fell over.
"Whoa, over here Lily," came James's voice distinctly from the left. Lily flew her hand out to that side cautiously. James caught it. "Closer to this side actually," he corrected. When Lily looked in the complete opposite direction entirely he made her lay back down.
"What happened to me anyway?" she finally managed to sputter out.
"The tracking light malfunctioned, as near as I can tell. You wouldn't happen to know why, would you?" Dumbledore was worried, but Lily could honestly say that she didn't mean to lie when she replied groggily, "No."
"Well then. Just rest for a tad. You should be up and about in no time. Until then I'll try and figure out what happened here. I might just have to resort to the spell I had in mind before you showed me this dagger here," he said with disappointment. Lily just laid on the ground and groaned. Her head ached. She didn't feel right, as if something was missing.
"Feeling alright?" James asked. Lily could tell he was concerned, but pointless questions like that just bugged her.
"Oh, I'm just peachy James, really I am. If you want I can stun you and see how you like it," she replied grumpily. 'Maybe that will teach him to talk sense,' she thought. James just laughed.
"Ok, I deserved that."
"Yes you did."
"I know."
"Because you are smarter than you just sounded," Lily said, blinking rapidly to restore her vision. James looked liked he had bright pixies dancing across his face. With that thought she began to giggle madly.
"Lily, are you alright?" he said, raising his eyebrows dubiously. "You seem… odd."
"We've been through this, no, I am not alright. And yes, I probably do seem odd considering I can't see and these blasted lights wont go away!" she burst out, closing her eyes tightly in frustration. "And I want to know just what about that spell made it 'relatively simple,'" she finished, echoing Dumbledore's words. There was a chuckle. Dumbledore had walked over silently, and was now standing at her side.
"Here, this will help," he said softly, whispering another spell. When Lily opened her eyes her sight was refreshingly devoid of all whirling colors. She was still a little faint though, managing only a weak "Thank you," before Dumbledore had to return to his work.
"What happened?" Lily questioned James in a whisper.
"Well, the light just split in two. One of the beams came straight at you. It didn't really hit you, exactly, you just absorbed it. Your eyes turned black for a little bit, actually. I've never seen anything that scared me more," James admitted. Lily didn't even want to think about it. "Then you just fell. You didn't move or respond to anything we did. But Dumbledore wasn't worried, so I guess I shouldn't have been. I couldn't really help it, I suppose," he said with a shrug. "At least you're okay."
"My eyes were black?" she half-shrieked. "All of them? The whites and everything?" she said a little bit quieter.
"You're scared!" James said, laughing. "Imagine me, having to watch it." He shuddered.
"I wonder what it was," she said to herself. James was, however, a scant few feet away from her and heard. And, being James, he obviously needed to reply.
"It was the spell, we know that. But it was supposed to be a tracking spell. Dumbledore thinks that you absorbed it because it sort of malfunctioned."
"Sort of?" she asked.
"Well, yeah. The other half worked," James said, not at all showing that he consciously knew he had made a mistake, that he had said the wrong thing.
"You mean the other part of the spell, the second beam, right?" she muscled herself up so her upper torso was off the ground.
"Yes," he said slowly.
"So it worked, right? We know where the attacker is?" she asked hopefully. 'But that's not right,' she thought. 'If we knew where he was Dumbledore would be off following him, not puttering around in the corner.'
"Yes and no," he said half-heartedly.
"Oh, just come out with it James," she said heatedly.
"The spell worked all right, just not the way that we expected it to."
"But it worked," Lily said, confused. "That means it shows us where the attacker is. How can there be a problem?" James finally looked wary. 'Serves him right,' she thought.
"Well, we know where the body should be, but… well, I'll just show you." He stood up and offered a hand. She got up and wavered, James put his arm around her waist and her arm over his shoulder so she could manage walking. Lily couldn't help thinking how cozy it felt.
She looked in Dumbledore's direction. There, on the ground, was the shimmering black outline of a body, plain and simple. Lily was dazzled by the light as well as the perplexity of the situation. "I don't understand," she whispered. But, as she approached she realized what was wrong. Where the body should have lain was nothing, just empty space. Dumbledore turned to face them.
"This is where the attacker fell. Obviously though, he managed to escape the power of this spell somehow and escape. You can see this is exactly where he fell, there is an imprint in the grass." Lily kneeled and reached through the black light, pausing before she made contact to gain silent permission from the Headmaster. She felt the compact, hard ground and the flattened grass. 'It's not possible, no one could survive a fall like this,' she knew. 'No one.'
Unless, of course, it wasn't a person. Less than a human could escape, and escape he had.
* * *
I hope you appreciate the darling little cliffie I left you. Also, you are probably all wondering why I haven't updated this. You are probably waiting for my excellent, wonderful excuse. Um… yeah… I'm waiting for it too :)
All I can say is I was given a wonderful opportunity by my swim club and my parents to go on an overseas swim meet in Europe for a week. It is in Spring Break for public school but I will be missing a week so I have been working extra hard to get ahead work wise. I have my history term paper (anyone happen to be an expert on the East India Company and their role in gaining power in India? Just kidding…) to do as well which takes up a lot of my time. Also, last weekend, when I honestly planed on finishing this chapter I had another swim meet. Unfortunately I split my toe open on the edge of the pool (*ouch*) and did much worse than I was expected, so basically I spent the entire weekend depressed and moping :( But I'm better now! And this chapter is finished, which makes me feel good. I cannot promise when I will update, but know that I love you all and it will be posted just as soon as I can manage!
The thankyou section will be postponed until tomorrow, when I will replace this chapter with one with thankyous, if all goes according to plan!
And thanks for the support everyone, I know this took SOOOOOOO long :)