By: CNJ
PG-13
8: Lily's Rare Gift
Lily:
"I wish it were Gryffindor playing today instead of Ravenclaw or Slytherin," Zara told us as the three of us found seats in the high bleachers that first Saturday afternoon in November. "Wynona's one of the Beaters for the team."
"Yeah, I can't wait," I nodded. It was a sunny, but cold blustery windy afternoon and I could see a lot of people holding on to hats and scarves. My own scarf blew like the displayed Ravenclaw and Slytherin flags from time to time.
It seemed as if most of Hogwarts turned out for this match, both teachers and students. I could see Professors McGonagall and Pierce seated next to each other, talking. Professor Vester stood near them and peered around.
"Hey, there're Nadine and Melissa..." Amelia waved at them. We waved them over and they slowly made their way over. It was a tight squeeze, but we moved around enough to make room for all of us.
"Did you all read about that dragon that escaped from the magical lab this morning?" Nadine told us. I'd heard something about it, but the others hadn't. "It's a blueback diamond dragon, potentially dangerous."
Just then, the Quidditch players rode out on their brooms. I'd seen some of them in the halls, but the only player I knew was Lucius, who was one of the Slytherin Chasers.
"Maaaaaalfoyyyy!" I heard someone scream from the opposite end of the bleachers where the Slytherin students sat and sure enough, I saw Narcissa waving wildly trying to get his attention.
"Some people will do anything for attention..." Melissa snorted and we snickered softly. Narcissa jumped up and down several times. John and Robert were with her.
I guess Robert got sick of her carrying on, because he pulled her down. I think Lucius saw her, but didn't pay much attention to her. In the field, Professor Monet stood in the field holding the Quaffle. She blew a whistle.
"Now, this game is going to be nice and...clean, isn't it?" she asked. Some players nodded. "Is it?" she asked again.
"Yessss..." both of the Quidditch teams chimed.
"She wishes..." Melissa muttered.
Professor Monet tossed the Quaffle and the Snitch and the game started. The first hour or so was a flurry of Quaffle-chasing, tangled brooms and whizzing brooms. Ravenclaw and Slytherin alternated scoring, so it was neck to neck.
I noticed a lot of the Slytherins were either showing off on their brooms or snatching the Quaffle from each other and bickering over who would be the one to shoot the Quaffle. Lucius snatched the Quaffle from Byrd Winslow at one point.
Byrd chased after him, yelling, "Give me that, you sneaky bastard!" Lucius sniggered and kept going, pushing other players out of the way. Byrd caught up to him and for a minute there was a tug-of-war between them.
Both of them ended up falling off their brooms, flat on the ground. Professor Monet had to call a time out. Lifting them both up, she dressed them down.
Of course, they each tried to blame each other, but she just told them to knock it off and get in there and play like team players. So, resentfully, they got back onto their brooms and the game continued.
"You know what is swell?" Zara asked at one point.
"Yeah..." I nodded.
"More and more women and girls are on the teams," Zara told me.
"Yes, it is," I agreed. Amelia nodded.
"I was just reading in the Daily Prophet that finally Quidditch has some teams that are mostly or all female compared to the past," Amelia put in. I'd heard that too. "Until twenty years ago, the Chudley Canons only had one woman on their team, now they've added more."
I thought about the muggle world, where women are slowly gaining equality in the world. We're so lucky to be living now in the early seventies.
Mum's able to have a great career and so are a lot of other women and even here are a lot of great female professors. Actually, it seemed like the magical world was appreciably ahead of the muggle world in that aspect.
"Heeeeeey!" I heard one of the Slytherin players bellow and I saw that Lucius had knocked him off the broom and apparently had snatched the Quaffle away and was heading toward the hoops with it. He had a gleeful grin on his face.
"Heyyyy, one of the Seekers is about to catch the snitch..." Amelia pointed. Sure enough, the two Seekers were practically neck-to-neck.
The Ravenclaw Seeker, Grace Fenster had her arm out. The Slytherin Seeker, I didn't know his name was knocking into her, trying to knock her off her broom. Suddenly, the Slytherin Seeker seemed to drop back.
"Goooo, Grace!" someone bellowed from the Ravenclaw bleachers. The next few minutes several things seemed to happen at once.
Lucius was so busy going for the hoops and was showing off in the process that he wasn't paying attention to an oncoming Bludger. The Bludger knocked the Quaffle away from him.
I had to stifle a snicker at the shocked, indignant look on his face once he realized that he no longer had the Quaffle and was by the hoops. A Ravenclaw Keeper shrugged and smirked at him.
At the same time, the Slytherin Seeker zoomed up in front of Grace, causing her to crash into him and fall backward off her broom and it was he who ended up catching the snitch.
A huge roar went up from the Slytherin side. Lucius scowled down at the Seeker for stealing the show. From the Ravenclaw side, I could hear yells and moans of "Ohhh, shiiiit..." and "...that rat just pushed her off..." and other complaints.
"Slytherin wins!" the announcer, Erin Piller announced. "Gregory Banwall has the snitch and it's two hundred to one hundred and fifty. Very close match, the closest we've had in years..." she went on for a few more minutes. Gregory paraded about with the little gold Snitch and gloated at Lucius, who looked like he'd just been named runner-up in an awards pageant.
We then got ready to leave. My friends and I waited until some of the crowd had thinned out before starting out ourselves. Just then, we heard a sort of scratching sound in the distance that progressed into a low roar.
"What's that...?" someone called. The roar got louder until it was a gravelly sort of growl.
"It's the dragon!" someone bellowed.
"My God!" "Merlin!" were some of the shouts that rose up from the stands. Some students screamed, others ran while teachers rounded everyone up, or tried to. My friends and I were near the end, so we tried to stay calm. Looking up, I saw a blue dragon flying toward us.
"Repello flamare..." several teachers chanted. I knew that was the spell to repel dragon's fire.
Students were still screaming and panicking. Some got inside, while others milled around helplessly.
My friends and I climbed down around the huddle close to the field. Good thing we were close to the bottom because in all the mayhem, we wound up falling under the bleachers and unto the ground below. A shadow crossed over the bleachers and we tried to lie still.
"What do you know about dragons?" Zara asked us shakily. There were five of us under there...Zara, Amelia, Nadine, Melissa, and me.
"Just that the blue dragon can be dangerous and its flames can burn..." Melissa shrugged. We started to edge out toward the castle, but the dragon was overhead. Everyone else had proceeded indoors, so here we were alone with the dragon.
"I think it's the one that escaped from the lab," Amelia whispered. "Is there any spells we can do to stun it or anything?"
"N-no..." Nadine's teeth were rattling and I could tell it wasn't because of the cold. I was shivering too. "Unless it has a nick on its hide or some open spot." The dragon opened its mouth and the a whoosh went up and we saw flames licking at the benches.
"Oh, Merlin, let's get out of here..." I cried.
"And get ourselves fried?" Zara croaked.
"We'll get fried if we stay here under these stands," Melissa pointed out. "Hey, I remembered...it can only blow out flames at one-minute intervals, so at the next minute, let's make a run for it toward the woods." We nodded.
It would be too long to run straight to the school, so the woods would have to do. At the next minute, we did just that. I felt something hit my arm with a jolt, but ignored it.
Right as we got to the edge, the dragon, which was now on the ground, followed and opened its mouth for another gush of fire. It was about twenty feet.
I gulped at the sight of the hard-looking blue hide and its spikes running down its back. The next minute is a blur, but what happened next is almost too incredible to explain.
One minute I was on the ground with my friends and the next, I seemed to be in the air floating toward the dragon. Closer I got until I could see a faint greenish tinge and scales in its back. It was getting ready to shoot out more flames.
"Repello flamare!" I bellowed. The rush that came out actually started out almost as an orange mist, then seemed to solidify into fire.
"REPELLO FLAMARE!" I yelled again, holding out my wand. I ducked out of the way just in time to avoid the flames and I was relieved that my friends apparently had too.
Stun it, I told myself. Some open spot, I remembered Nadine saying. Its mouth would open again.
It felt odd to be just floating in air and vaguely I remembered an incident as a small child, maybe when I was around three of something like this happening...I'd seemed to float above my body once when Petunia was getting ready to push me down a flight of stairs.
I watched until its mouth opened again, came as close as I dared, feeling a chilling fear race through me. I could die doing this, but I'll be saving my friends and maybe everyone else at Hogwarts.
I could see the deep red interior of its mouth and once I got close enough to see down its throat, I chanted the stunning spell...and backed off quickly as the mouth snapped closed. The dragon seemed to slow down.
I felt a cord tugging me and the next thing I was aware of was that I was flat on the ground in the forest with my friends.
"Lily...Lily, are you...?" Amelia was stroking my cheek.
"Whh..." I groggily sat up, wondering what had just happened. "Yes, I'm..." Up ahead, we saw the dragon fall over on its side and apparently lose consciousness. "It worked..." I whispered.
"What?" the others chimed in.
"I used the stunning spell in its mouth," I told the others. "Somehow I separated from my body and came close and stunned it by chanting the spell inside the opening...its mouth."
"We thought you'd fainted..." Zara told me. "We're glad you're all right."
"You left your body...?" Melissa asked.
"I...think so...it's happened before when I was frightened..." I briefly told the others about my experience at three as we headed back to Hogwarts. Once we got close to the door, the door flew open and Professors Pierce and Vester came out.
"Are you girls all right?" They asked seemingly at once. "Where were you?" "What happened?" We told them, bit by bit.
"Lily stunned the dragon," Zara told them.
"Lily...how?" Pierce stared toward the inert dragon at the edge of the woods. "My dear...you've burned your arm...did you know how dangerous it would be?" I nodded and looking down, realized that indeed, I did have a long burn on my left arm.
"We fell through the benches," Amelia told her. "Since we were the last ones in, it was safer to head toward the woods where there'd be temporary shelter...and Lily had her soul split from her body, so that's how she stunned the dragon."
"Astral projection..." Professor Vester nodded as we walked inside.
"What?" All five of us turned to our Headmaster in puzzlement.
"Astral projection is what what happened with Lily is called," Professor Vester clarified. "It's a very rare gift indeed and apparently, you, Ms. Evans seem to possess it."
"Wow..." I whispered. Imagine having some gift that few people have.
"I'd better contact the lab and have Xyron bound the dragon up to take back to the lab," Professor Pierce announced. "We're relieved you're all right...and in addition, Gryffindor gains twenty points for each of you for your courage and level-headedness in a dangerous situation. Lily, why don't you head over to the hospital wing to have that burn treated and I'll see all of you at dinner." With that, she smiled at us and headed to her office. Professor Vester smiled at us and headed off too.
"Amazing..." Zara grinned.
"Wow, Lily, that was incredible, your battle with the dragon!" Amelia put in.
"Wait until everyone hears about it..." Nadine put in. I smiled softly as we walked to the hospital wing for the medic to take a look at my burn.
It turned out to be a second-degree one and Madame Pomfrey wrapped put a magic liquid on it and chanted a spell to kill the pain, then wrapped it in a gauze, which was supposed to speed healing.
"Come back in two days, so I can make sure it's healed," she told me with a smile. "I heard about your courage out there...congratulations, dearie."
She kissed my head and we
headed out toward dinner. Wait until I wrote to Mum and Dad about
this latest adventure. I never thought I'd battle a dragon and win.
More later!