Authors Note: I'm awfully sorry the appalling speed I have adopted. Three weeks, it'll be the summer holidays. FINALLY! If I don't get five chapters of any story up in that time, I shall be very angry with myself. Thank you SO much to people that review this story. I love people who leave a comment, whether it be bad or good! And the fifth book is supposed to be coming out in about 6 months or so! Yes!!!!
Disclaimer: Everything that belongs to JKR and has been mentioned within the amazing books of Harry Potter is very muchly not mine.
Sweet Lily
Chapter Four: Green as a Goblin With a Pink Bow
Peter Pettigrew was lonely. He had never been popular with anyone his whole life. When he came to Hogwarts, however, people talked to him. The three boys, Remus, James and Sirius had been relatively friendly to him on the train the day before. And today, he had followed them around the school. Right now he was crouched behind a suit of armour somewhere in Hogwarts, listening to Remus, James and Sirius chatter quietly about a metre away. Peter couldn't see them of course. An Invisibility Cloak concealed them. But he knew where they were because they never stopped talking. Talking about some prank to frighten the beejeebies out of four girls they had been stalking since History of Magic.
The four girls were lost, it seemed. They stood together, talking as they stared out of a large, arched window where the lake could be spotted. Peter recognised the girls as Lily Evans, Tamara Scott, Cinnamon something, and Cassidy something else. He sighed heavily and leant back against the wall. His movement caused an invisible cloud of dust to arise. Peter felt his nose tickle, ready to sneeze. He was going to sneeze. He couldn't stop it. One. Two. Three…
"Achoo!"
The girls swivelled round speedily, facing empty air with confused expressions. Remus, Sirius and James froze in the places and shut their mouths for a second.
"What'd you sneeze for, James?" Sirius hissed under his breath, shuffling to the left.
His two companions copied his move; slowly moving towards the left wall so the girls wouldn't bump into them.
"It wasn't me, Sirius!"
"Nor me," Remus piped up quietly, staying close to James and Sirius.
There was another sneeze from the same direction. Loud and distinguishable, it was.
"Who's there?" Tamara called out blindly, walking towards Remus, James and Sirius where they stood as still as boulders planted in the dirt.
Lily was a little shaken at the moment. It was their first day and someone was stalking them! Was Hogwarts safe?
"We're extremely talented in curses and all! We could curse you til your bums drop off!" Tamara cried out, her arms outstretched, feeling the empty air.
Lily raised her eyebrows at Tamara's flattering comment, nearly laughing a little. Someone to the left of the corridor sniggered loudly, causing Tamara to bound in that direction like a bunny rabbit. Instantly, she ran into something solid, knocking whatever it was to the ground with an outrageous cry.
Cinnamon, Cassidy and Lily watched with interest as James, Sirius and Remus' heads appeared suddenly, each wearing expressions of bafflement, uncomfortableness and frustration. Tamara, sitting comfortably upon the boys, was happy to have found the criminals.
"Gotcha!" she wailed triumphantly, punching the air.
"What are you three doing here?" Cassidy asked, folding her arms across her chest.
"We were following Sirius' pet toad. He ran away," James answered immediately, nodding his head pointedly.
"Sirius and Remus exchanged agreeable looks with each other. Tamara wasn't satisfied at all.
"He doesn't have a pet toad, idiots."
"Course he does!" James piped.
"Since when?"
"Since he was just a little toddler in itsy bitsy diapers!"
Sirius nudged James powerfully in the ribs in reply to his statement. Cinnamon, Cassidy and Lily was merely the audience to watch the scene unfold, humouring them all, as was Peter, tucked away behind the dusty suit of armour.
"Whatever. I can't believe you sneezed! I thought you'd be more careful, Sirius!" Tamara said, changing the subject abruptly.
"I swear!" Sirius replied forcefully. "It wasn't us!"
"Right. Then who was it?" Tamara demanded to know.
This was Peter's cue to come out. He was getting sick of sitting there doing nothing anyway. He crept out from his hiding place, letting Remus and James spot him.
"Peter, buddy ol' pal!" James said, waving for him to come over. "What are you hiding for?"
"Ah…"
Peter cursed himself. He wasn't half as good as these boys at making up stories to protect himself!
"I- I don't know."
"Doesn't matter," Remus said, smiling.
It was only a small improvement to his pallid skin and sickly form.
"It was you who sneezed, wasn't it?"
"Um… Yeah. Sorry."
"What's to be sorry about?" Sirius asked gleefully, showing no disappointment that it was Peter who caused him to be found out. "You haven't ruined anything, Peter."
"Now that you are here," Cinnamon said from behind Tamara. "But do you know the way back to the Common Room?"
"Sure we do!" James said, heaving himself up from the ground.
Peter managed to spot that he was trying to keep something hidden from the girls. He had covered whatever it was with the Invisibility Cloak and had it in his hands behind his back.
Lily eyed James suspiciously as he walked up to the girls calmly. She had no reason to believe that he was up to no good, but there was just something about his impish smile… James, swiftly and as quickly as he could, spun the large bucket around to his front, sloshing green liquid onto the floor. Tamara, Lily, Cinnamon and Cassidy stepped back when they saw the green stuff, but not far enough. James hauled the bucket at them, emptying it of the liquid.
"Eeeeeaaaarrrrrrrggghhh!!"
Lily stood, gasping loudly, her mouth wide open and staring at James and Sirius' laughing faces. Remus and Peter though, were not laughing so hard. Peter was smiling with his hand over his mouth and Remus was laughing a little, seemingly unsure whether to hastily disguise it as a cough, and ended up with a coarse giggle.
The vision was extremely funny. Cassidy, Cinnamon, Lily and Tamara were soaked with a horrible green dye that had already stained their skin, clothes and hair, much to their fury. Cassidy's hair, blonde to start with, was now a very dark and noticeable green, as was Cinnamon and Lily's hair, but not quite to the extent as Cassidy's. Tamara's hair, though, was dark enough to mask the green. Surrounding them was a deep green puddle from where the dye had missed them and where the excess liquid was dripping from their robes.
"YOU OBNOXIOUS SODS! I WAS VERY WRONG WHEN I ACTUALLY BELIEVED YOU TWO COULD ATTEND HOGWARTS WITHOUT CAUSING ANY TROUBLE!" Tamara roared furiously, her eyes flashing dangerously from one guilty face to the next. "You wait til I tell your mothers' about this! You'll never hear the end of it! You'll be grounded from now til the end of the universe!"
"Oi! Tamara, you don't have to go tattle on us to our parents!" Sirius protested, finally coming to a halt from laughter. "This is between us, not our parents who are far away now! You know my mum will make me help her with the gardening and cooking and cleaning and everything!"
"Look at what you have done to us!" Cassidy yelled, raising her arms to prove a point.
This just made the boys' laugh harder and louder than before, looking at the green girls through squinted eyes.
"Do you know where the Common Room is?" Lily inquired as politely as she could without losing her temper. She was breathing heavily and deeply.
"Yeah. We'll take you."
Thankfully, the boys did lead them to the Common Room without any detours to torture them with more of their pranks or ideas. Though, they did pass a lot of students walking through the halls that giggled behind their hands and pointed at them, sniggering mercilessly. It was another twenty minutes before they reached the portrait of the Fat Lady.
"Oh my!" she gasped when she saw the girls, saturated with green dye. "What on earth happened to you four?"
"They happened," Cinnamon scowled, gesturing to Sirius, James, Remus and Peter, who were still chuckling.
"Causing trouble already? You four had better get used to detention if you're to continue this… behaviour! Girls, I suggest a long, hot shower with lots of soap! Password?"
"Hot Chocolate."
Cassidy, Cinnamon, Lily and Tamara looked down at the carpet as they entered Gryffindor Tower, receiving gasps, titters and other signs of amusement. Ignoring the attention, they immediately ventured to the First Year Girls' Showers to attempt to wash away the stains.
Lily scrubbed her skin as hard as she had ever done in her life until her skin ached and felt raw. The wizard soap seemed to take away a fraction of the greenness, but it was still visibly there, within her hair and skin. Tamara could be heard cursing and growling, her temper lost long ago. Cinnamon was a little calmer about the whole situation. She thought it very funny that they were green, but was still humiliated by it all. Cassidy was angry, but not so much as Tamara was. She was frenzied by the fact that they might remain green forever.
"We need to ask a teacher to make us normal again," Cassidy proposed once they were all out of the showers.
"Madame Pomfrey will help us!" Cinnamon suggested, nodding her head confidently.
At first, Tamara protested, feeling humiliated to walk amid the other Gryffindors. In the end, Lily managed to convince her that she would have to face them anyway. If she refused to go to class, McGonagall would be on her tail and probably drag her through the school to the Headmaster, making more of a fool of her than now.
"Twice in one day!" Madame Pomfrey exclaimed the first moment she saw Cinnamon and Lily at the door of the Hospital Wing.
The two girls exchanged small, guilty smiles with each other before explaining what had happened to them.
"You see, we were walking back from History of Magic-"
"-We were lost-"
"-And these insolent, stupid, daft, obnoxious, self-centred, fools-"
"-Some idiots drowned us in-"
"-This green slime-"
"-It stained us, see?"
"And we can't get it off-"
"-We tried everything-"
"We were just wondering whether you could turn us back to our normal colours?"
Madame Pomfrey beckoned them further down the ward, thinking silently to herself.
"It depends what brand of dye," she admitted ponderously. "Yindigg's Colour Stain is fairly simple to remove, but The Tyrant's Best No-Removal Bye is rather complicated and can always leave you tinged slightly for the rest of your life. But as a student did this, it would most likely be Long-Lasting Prankster Colour, which I reveal, does not really last that long."
The nurse's knowledge of colour dyes and whether they came off or not personally amazed Lily. Cinnamon and Cassidy were also, but Tamara hadn't changed in moods for a long time. She still remained furious with James, Sirius, Remus and Peter, even though Peter didn't have anything to do with the prank.
"It will just take a simple test to see which one you've been drenched with. A very accurate drink I created five years ago while I was still studying Healing and Medicine."
Leaving the four girls lingering outside her office, Madame Pomfrey disappeared for a few minutes, arriving back with four very small goblets filled with a liquid that resembled apple juice.
"Just throw that into your mouths, shake your head around and spit the liquid back into the cup," Madame Pomfrey instructed, nodding her head as she handed them each a goblet.
Lily and Cinnamon, for the second time that day, accepted liquid from Madame Pomfrey. Hoping that it didn't taste half as bad as the stuff she swallowed before, Lily threw the drink into her mouth. It tasted exactly like apple juice, to her utter surprise. Though, there was a hint of lemon juice within the sweetness. Lily shook her head around feeling silly then spat the now
tasteless drink into the goblet. The original clear, yellow-orange colour had disappeared from the liquid and had turned into a pinkish-red colour with a hint of blue.
Yet again, Madame Pomfrey vanished into her office, taking the goblets with her. She returned with a two-litre bottle of what appeared to be water.
"This is the antidote. It was Long-Lasting Prankster Colour. Just tip about two capfuls of this stuff into the bath with no added bubble mixture. Put the two together and you'll turn orange for a week before it washes off completely. Anyway, bathe for about half an hour and you'll be back to normal. With the rest of it, put your clothes in an enlarged bucket with whatever is left of this stuff and the rest, water. Soak for a day and the green will be left in the wash water. Any questions?"
Each girl shook their head then headed off with the bottle to the Gryffindor Girls Baths. Each dorm had there own toilet and showers, but the whole house shared baths, split between girls and boys.
"Why didn't you tell her that it was the boys that turned us green?" Lily asked Tamara as they received a snigger and a laugh from two Slytherin girls.
"Ugh!" Tamara answered, very frustrated at the moment. "Because I never tattle on them! I'll just make them let me help with their next five pranks. That won't make them happy."
"You're too soft," Cassidy remarked, frowning.
"Maybe. But they hate people besides themselves helping with their tricks and whatnot."
"We know where we're going, don't we?" Lily interrupted. "I don't fancy getting lost twice in one day!"
"Oh, we're not lost," Cinnamon said calmly, smiling. "I left a trail. See?"
Tamara, Cassidy and Lily peered over Cinnamon's shoulder in awe. Going right down the hall and turning left round a corner was a trail of small, golden sparks, flickering brilliantly in the candle light.
"You're so smart!" Tamara cried joyously. "We're going to live!"
Ten minutes later after following the fading trail of golden sparkles, they were faced with the Fat Lady for who knows what time that day.
"Hot Chocolate."
"Delicious and sweet drink, that is. Absolutely beautiful topped with whipped cream, few bits of chocolate with marshmallows hiding under the cream! Simply lovely!" the Fat Lady said in response to the password.
"Cream is foul!" Cinnamon grimaced. "I much prefer marshmallows piled high with sprinkles and a chocolate stick stuck in it all."
"Hot chocolate is yuck, full stop," Cassidy said, pretending to throw up.
"I think the Fat Lady has got the idea of a perfect hot chocolate! Gosh, yummy!" Lily exclaimed, licking her lips with a dreamy expression. "What I would give for one right now."
"You won't have to wait that long, dearie," the Fat Lady remarked kindly. "At eight each evening, all the perfect ingredients to make an equally perfect hot chocolate are set out on the table in the corner next to the boys dormitories."
"Really?" Tamara insisted. "How do you know?"
"I have very keen ears, children, very keen ears."
The Fat Lady swung open and the four girls clambered into the Common Room, earning a few stares. Without bothering to purposely stare back at the onlookers, they entered the Gryffindor Girls Baths Room. Everything from the walls, floor and ceiling were tiled. Along the walls were enlarged cubicles, exactly like those found on public toilets, except larger. In turn, they poured the amount of the dye removal into each of their baths and began soaking themselves in separate cubicles.
**********
Cassidy shook the bottle of what was left of the dye removal. The girls had gathered all their clothing that was stained by the dye, and had piled it into a large bucket, then soaking it all with tap water. The only thing left to do was adding the dye removal and let it be for twenty-four hours. However, Cassidy had other ideas.
"It seems a pity," she said, in a slow deliberate voice, "That we have to use all of this on our clothes. Would a little less of it make a difference, you think?"
"I suppose not," Tamara said, chewing her bottom lip thoughtfully. "Madame Pomfrey did say what was left would do. And there's no saying how much she meant."
"Exactly. So, maybe if we just added a little less than we originally intended to, it wouldn't affect our clothes at all," Cassidy said.
"But what are we supposed to use the leftover stuff for?" Lily inquired curiously.
"Revenge is sweet!" Cinnamon burst out excitedly. "Of course!"
"We'll just slip a little of this into their shampoos while Tamara is convincing them to let her in on some of their tricks, and when they wash their hair, it'll turn orange for a week! That's if shampoo is some type of bubble mixture," Cassidy added happily.
"I'd say it is," Cinnamon said. "It'll be wonderful to see their hair orange. But to get into their dormitories is going to be hard."
"Can we do it now?"
"Wait."
Cassidy opened the bottle of dye removal and added three-quarters of the contents into the bucket with their clothes.
**********
"We'd like a quick chat with you, if you don't mind."
"In private."
"Your dormitories, now."
"Come along, slow coaches."
"Oy! Wait! What do you think you're doing!" Sirius protested, but the girls had already begun the climb up the stairs to the Boys' Dormitories.
Remus, James, Sirius and Peter (the other three had pretty much adopted him now) rushed after the girls, muttering about forbidden places and bossy people.
"What are you doing?" James demanded, entering the threshold of the First Year Boys' Dormitories to find each girl seated comfortably on his bed.
"Making ourselves relatively comfy, thank you very much," Tamara snapped. "Because we knew you people wouldn't offer us a seat to save you lives."
"They know us too well, James," Lily heard Sirius whisper into James' ear.
"Anyway," Tamara went on, "We thought it might be kind of you to let us in on… say… three of your next tricks on innocent people. You know, just 'coz you got us with the green stuff."
Sirius and James in particular didn't take this proposal very well. They didn't begin screaming and yelling either though. They just raised their eyebrows and stood gaping at the four girls who all wore an expression of amusement. Peter and Remus were a little less insulted. Their eyebrows raised to the heavens and eyes turned to James and Sirius.
Cassidy was in an extremely bossy mood. "You do realise you have no choice."
Lily watched four pairs of eyes widen to the size of small saucers. In her opinion, they were very weird boys. They were nice, yes, and annoying sometimes, and plain spiteful other times, but very, very weird.
"Being green wasn't that bad, was it?" Remus questioned, tilting his head to the left.
"It was the most humiliating thing that has happened to me," Cassidy replied, scowling
Hearing her admit this, James and Sirius began to snigger and giggle.
"Okay. We'll let you," Sirius announced after his and James little giggle tournament. "Two only, though."
"Three."
"Two."
"Three!"
"Two and a half."
"Two and a half?"
"Excuse me?" Lily said quietly. "Could I please use your bathroom?"
While Sirius, James, Cassidy, Tamara, Peter and Cinnamon sorted out the pay back arrangements, Remus lead her through to the First Year Boys Bathroom, showing her the direction to the toilets. She thanked him and entered a cubicle, locking the door quietly.
Lily waited til she heard Remus close the door with a snap before she set the plan into action. Instead of just unlocking the door, Lily got down on her stomach and crept through the large opening between the blue tiled floor and the door. She knew that if someone came to get her and looked under the door, there would be no feet to prove her innocence.
The room was very much like the First Year Girls' Bathroom. Long and narrow lined with toilets, showers and basins. At the end of the room were ten cabinets. Not all the cabinets were always full of bits and pieces. Each student in the dormitory got a cabinet to themselves to keep their personal toiletries in. Luckily for Lily, they weren't kept under key and lock.
Lily tiptoed across the tiles, pausing to peep through the crack between the door and wall, just to check no one was coming. Each party was occupied with the other. Silently, she continued towards the small, white cabinets. It was easy to tell which ones she would have to invade. In the corner of each one were the initials of a different boy. Four of the boxes were unmarked.
Lily pulled a miniature glass vial out of her pocket within her robes and opened the first cupboard reading 'SB' in very curly letters, hardly readable. This was Sirius' cupboard. Lily nearly shrieked with fright from what she first spotted in the small space where Sirius kept his stuff. On the top shelf, next to a pyramid of yellow bricks of soap, was a tiny jar, holding a furry spider. Lily was terrified of spiders.
Noting that the spider was trapped in the jar, Lily went on with her mission, searching for shampoo. The top shelf was where the soap and spider were. On the second shelf was a dark blue toothbrush, five tubes of 'Extra Extra And a Little Bit More Extra Frothy Toothpaste: Hot Mint Flavour', five cans of deodorant and a comb. The third shelf was empty. Lily let out a tiny shriek of frustration. Doesn't he wash his hair? It's long enough! Maybe it's in one of the showers…
Closing the cupboard as quickly and noiselessly as possible, Lily moved onto Peter's cabinet, proposing to investigate the showers a little later. The contents of Peter's cabinet were a tad less interesting than Sirius'. There was, like Sirius, a pile of soap for the year, a few tubes of toothpaste ('Ducks Chocolate Flavoured, Special Whitening Toothpaste'), a toothbrush, a few cans of deodorant, a brush and shampoo.
Lily flipped the lid of the shampoo bottle and placed it on the edge of the shelf to make it easier to reach. She then opened the vial of clear liquid and with careful agility, poured one quarter into the shampoo bottle. Lily slipped the glass container into her pocket, snapped the shampoo lid closed and gave the bottle a gentle shake before replacing it to its original position and moving onto Remus' cabinet.
Each boy kept similar things: a years supply of soap, deodorant and toothpaste, toothbrush, a comb or hairbrush and shampoo. After Lily had emptied three quarters of the dye removal into Peter's Remus' and James' shampoo bottles, she began hunting for Sirius' shampoo in the showers.
They were still damp from the morning and quite a bit slippery too. The first shower stall was bare, except for a slimy bar of scented soap. Lily moved onto the second and found what she was looking for. Shampoo! Making sure not to slip and bash her head in, Lily crouched down and emptied the dye removal into the shampoo, pleased, and slightly guilty, with herself. After she unlocked the toilet door and let herself out, she couldn't help but notice that in the third shower there was another bottle of shampoo.
**********
The deal was done. Sirius, James, Peter and Remus were to let Lily, Tamara, Cinnamon and Cassidy 'assist', as James called it, with two of their next tricks, which both happened to be on poor Severus Snape. The boys had developed a grudge against the Slytherin ever since they stepped off the train. It wasn't that Lily like Severus Snape, but one had to feel sympathetic towards anyone who was going to be forced to put up with all the trouble the boys were going to hurl at him.
Dinner that night was a relaxing affair. Already, only one day into the school year, Lily had settled into her new group of friends and classmates. Cassidy had invited her brother and sister, Aimee and Blake, to sit at the Gryffindor table fro dinner. They brought along their newfound friends, Dahlia Zing, Blythe Matheson and Samson Beattie.
"Lily, can you pass the sausages please?"
Obligingly she did so, delivering the large platter of sausages to Remus.
That evening in the Common Room, Lily wrote a letter to her parents on some special scented parchment Tamara had given her.
To Mum, Dad and Petunia,
It's absolutely fabulous here! Hogwarts is a giant castle! I'm sorry I didn't write to you earlier. I was going to
last night, but I fell asleep too soon. Tamara gave me this parchment. It smells like vanilla!
I started classes today. First I had Herbology. My friend Cinnamon and I made fish food from scratch and then these two boys, Sirius and Vance soaked us. They were cleaning the fishpond and they wet us. We had to go to the Hospital Wing for some medicine so we wouldn't get colds. Then we had Charms. We just learnt to swish and flick our wands when performing spells. Then Lunch and Transfiguration. Then History of Magic. That was rather boring, but I tried to pay attention. Then we got lost on our way back to the Common Room and got lost and these boys dyed us green! It's all right. The nurse gave us some stuff to make us normal again.
Tonight we have Astronomy at midnight. The food here is delicious too. Just ask Sirius and James. Every time you mention food they lick their lips or rub their stomachs or something.
I am sending this with my new friend, Pepper's owl. The owl's name is Twinkles. Pepper tells me Twinkles will wait for you to reply, then you just give the letter to her and she will deliver it to me. It's strange getting used to all this. But very fun!
Love from,
Lily
Guided by Pepper, Lily rolled the parchment up, tied a piece of string around it and gave it to Twinkles the owl. Twinkles clasped the string with her long talons and disappeared through the window, into the night.
In a corner of the Common Room, Sirius, James, Remus, Peter, Cinnamon, Cassidy and Tamara had gathered, aided with a few overstuffed armchairs, a chessboard, quills and parchment. Lily went over and seated herself next to Cassidy. She moved, however, onto the floor when Remus invited her to a game of chess. He went about explaining the rules and how to play the wizards chess and they began while the next two tricks were schemed.
"I have a vision!" Sirius exclaimed dramatically. "Of Snape as a little pink bunny rabbit with a bow around his neck!"
Tamara was amused, but realistic. "Yes, very funny, Sirius. Fantastic idea. But how do you suppose we do that? We're first years into our first day of school."
Sirius frowned with disappointment, but brightly added, "Well, we'll do it another day, won't we?"
It was Cassidy's turn to roll her eyes. "More like another year. We don't start human transfiguration til about fifth year."
"Checkmate."
Lily widened her eyes. "How do you do that? You beat me twice now."
"It's just in the way you direct the pieces," Remus said smugly, then adding off-handedly, "Or it could be that my dad taught me well."
"The last one is more believable," Lily said, smiling as the reset the chessboard for another match. "How's the prank brainstorm coming along?"
"Ugh," she answered dully, looking at Lily. "Sirius and James are impossible. They seem to think that they can do absolutely anything. But we don't learn half of it til fifth year or something ridiculous like that! They don't know reality from fantasy."
Lily laughed out loud, and even more so when Tamara gave her an exasperated glare.
"And you go through the torture while I play chess and lose every time. I feel I got the good end of the deal."
As the night wore on, the Common Room slowly emptied until it was only the first years left wandering around in a sleepy doze, waiting to head up to the Astronomy Tower for class at midnight. Tamara managed to convince the boys to start small with their tricks, and they had finally understood why. Two days from then, they were going to somehow get some potion onto Severus Snape that would make him break out in ugly boils over his skin. Thankfully it was a potion taught in first year. The second prank, however, was undecided upon.
At eleven thirty, the first years departed from Gryffindor Tower in search of the Astronomy Tower. They were in a tight bunch, wandering through the darkened halls in their slippers and dressing gowns, shivering in the cold night air. They found the Astronomy Tower fairly simply, as it was close to the Common Room. When they arrived, they had ten minutes to spare.
Lily and Cinnamon stood by the large, arch window, quivering from the icy breeze. After two minutes, they finally couldn't take the cold any more, stepped back, rubbing their hands together fiercely to warm their blue faces.
"Up! Now! On the roof!"
The whole class jumped in surprise. A woman had entered the tower while they weren't watching and was tugging at a string on the ceiling. She was middle height and was quite portly and plump, notably around the middle. Her hair, dark brown and curly, was pulled up on top of her head, secured in a ponytail. She wore a knitted scarf around her neck coloured black and blue with violet tassels.
A stepladder suddenly fell through the roof, landing with a loud clack on the stone floor.
"Come on! One at a time! Up there!" the professor barked, gripping the ladder.
Clumsily, Lily climbed the ladder, her legs trembling from both the chill and fright from meeting her fiery Astronomy professor. Outside on top of the tower, the frozen wind blew hard, pushing against her body forcefully, blowing her hair into disarray and knotting the red curls. The frosty weather was numbing. Everyone's faces were pale and blue with teeth chattering uncontrollably, attempting to heat up by rubbing their hands and arms or pulling their dressing gowns tighter to their skin.
If Lily wasn't so cold and shivery, she could have been more observant and grateful of the startlingly marvellous view of the Hogwarts Grounds and the Forbidden Forest. The new moon glowed brilliantly in the black sky, white stars dotting the horizon. Down below, dimmed by the darkness, was the Quidditch Field. The tall, golden hoops were nearly invisible. The forest was merely a pure black area that stretched further than the eye could see, past the castle grounds.
Lily and Tamara stood together at one end of the tower. It was a large, circular area with the trapdoor into the room below in the centre. The tower was made from huge grey stone bricks, about forty centimetres thick. There was a metre high barrier surrounding the platform. In a small area, several telescopes and things were sitting, recently polished.
The professor appeared through the trapdoor, heaving herself onto the top of the tower in a not-so-graceful, but quick way. She stood up, slammed the door shut and faced the class.
"I'll say this once, not twice," she said sternly, but more softly than the way she was talking before. "I am Professor Eyton. I expect my students to arrive in class prepared and ready to act like their age. If you choose not to, I will not hesitate at all to give you a detention. Now that that's over with, carefully grab a telescope between a group of three. If you can't choose the groups yourselves, I'll do it for you. Now!"
Rather startled by the tone of voice used, the Gryffindors formed four groups of three within twenty seconds, too afraid to see what would happen if they disobeyed Professor Eyton's orders.
Lily was in a group with Tamara and Basil Hawkins. He was rather tall with a head of curly orange hair that flopped sweetly over his eyes. He was constantly brushing it away out of his eyes, but it always came back.
The hour that they were on top of the tower, the children froze and were deafened by Professor Eyton's sharp, demanding voice that pierced the calming sounds of the wind whistling and the quiet chatter of the students. They learnt about the three brightest stars that night. How they were discovered and how far away they were from the earth above other various things.
It was that night, Lily slept more deeply and soundly than she ever had before. Tiredness seemed to take over her whole entire body like a tidal wave, sending her to sleep for the night.