This Time Around"

This Time Around"

Sequel to "Lily Evans"

by Dorthey Star

Chapter Five: Hauffle the Awful

For Landry Ann who is in my thoughts and prayers.

Before Lily knew it, February had rolled around again. To some this meant, well, it was the second month in the year. To others it mean cold weather. And to that smaller part, made up mostly of girls and Lockheart, it meant the evil V holiday (as most boys referred to it as). Yes, I am talking about Valentines Day.

Normally Lily didn't mind Valentines Day. At her Muggle school they would have a small party every year that mainly consisted of passing out little store bought paper valentines with a bit of candy attached. This resulted in many wild kids. This year, however, Lily was dreading what Peter would do. The whole school knew that he liked her, and she often had to face taunts about it. She now tried to avoid that whole lot: James, Peter, Sirius, and even Remus. This was hard to do as they were in the same house and year meaning they had all their classes together.

"Is he coming?" Lily whispered to Maria as Maria peeped around the corner on Valentines Day.

"No, I think it's clear until the Great Hall," Sirius, who had slipped up unnoticed behind Lily, whispered into her ear. Lily jumped up, startled.

"Um, hi, Sirius. Me an' Maria were just going…to…um…" Lily trailed off and looked at Maria hopefully.

"Back to our dorms. Lily seems to have forgotten her marbles," Maria rolled her eyes and started to head back to the dorm.

"Actually, I think I lost them the first time I came to Hogwarts," Lily muttered to Maria who giggled.

"We play Ravenclaw tomorrow, Lil," Maria commented suddenly.

"Yes, James informed me of that. He also informed me that I would be sitting with Peter. I want to go to watch you play, but I would have no one…wait, I'll just sit with Sukie!" Lily grinned. James had made the Quidditch team as a Chaser (he originally tried out for Seeker) and Maria had made it as a Beater. Sirius would be doing the commentary at the match the next day.

"Fraternizing with the enemy?" Maria asked, cocking one eyebrow, as they arrived inside the dorm.

"No, just…Sukie. Is there any reason to be up here besides the obvious?" Lily as she stroked Shadow who was purring loudly.

"Nope, not really," Maria said and they headed down to breakfast.

Their last class that Valentines Day was Potions with Awful Hauffle.

"Sit. Now!" she roared as she walked into a classroom full of kids that were wild from the chocolate frogs that Professor Reed (the Astronomy teacher that had a soft spot for kids) had given out as awards in their Theory class. Soon, everyone in the class was sitting still. When Professor Hauffle was mad, her eyes did the most peculiar thing…they turned from dirt brown to ice blue. It scared the living bit out of Lily. So, more often than ever, Professor Hauffle's eyes were ice blue. "My grandson was better behaved than all of you put together," she muttered. Professor Hauffle often talked about her son, comparing them to him. He'd found himself a suitable wife and he already had a promising career ahead of him, and they were here, playing chase in the dungeons. Her grandson was Lucius Malfoy who had been in 7th year the year before.

"Miss Brookes and Mr. Rudiment, pick up the homework. Everyone else get out your books and turn to page 110." Professor Hauffle sat down at her desk. Olivia Brookes had short brown hair and wore glasses. She would have been a slight bit pretty, but she was always sneering. Alexander Rudiment (not to be confused with Alex Crabbe) had very short honey blonde hair that stuck straight up. He was a show off and always trying to be the best in everything. They moved silently around the room picking up people's homework as the other Slytherins and Gryffindors got out their books silently.

"Since you've had a bit of chocolate," she said disapprovingly, "this class period will be focused on Potions Theory. Why the potion works like it should, in other words. Do questions 1-100. They are due next Friday. Get to work now." Hauffle the Awful said. Lily looked at the first question.

1. Why will adding holly berries affect a Polyjuice Potion?

Lily sighed quietly in frustration. She had no idea what the answer was and knew she'd be spending a lot of time in the library. The whole class period went by in silence for no one dared to even put a toe out of line with Hauffle the Awful. True, she favored Slytherin but this only meant taking off 10 points instead of 25. When the bell finally rang, everyone shot out of the classroom.

That night, while looking for a spare quill in her bag, Lily found a piece of what looked to be Muggle construction paper. Lily took it out of her bag. It was purple with a red heart on the front that was covered in glitter. Inside there was simply Happy Valentines Day but with no signature. Lily hurried and shoved it back into her bag. She wasn't sure if Peter sent it or if it was a joke from Sirius and James who were sitting in a far corner with their heads together, talking excitedly. She glared at them and went back to her homework.

[I thought about ending it here, but since I'm on a roll and wouldn't be able to sleep anyways, I'll continue.]

The next morning donned rainy, cold, and windy. They were the worst conditions for Quidditch that Lily had seen yet. Maria was nervous.

"Lily, I'll fall off my broom, or I'll miss the Bludger. I won't be able to see a thing in this weather, and…and…oh no…why did it have to be such awful weather?" she moaned all the way down to breakfast. James, who had been up early like Maria, who had woken Lily up, had been, was walking down with them to breakfast.

"At least you don't have to catch anything. I'll be trying to catch the wet Quaffle," James said in a very un-James like manner, which was nervous.

"I'm sure you'll do fine. I mean, weren't you just saying that Clara Traddles was the worst choice for captain and she wouldn't know a plan if 'QUIDDITCH PLAN' was written in large, friendly letters on the front cover in three inch high red words? Besides, you all seem to like Kent well enough-" James cut Lily off.

"Yeah, but he is dating Clara. If she asked him to forfeit the game, then he would. This is not good, not good at all," James moaned. Clara and Kent were both seventh years.

"Would he really? I want a boyfriend like that…someone who would do anything that I asked…" Maria sighed wistfully, all thoughts of falling off her broom or missing the Bludger were driven out of her mind for the moment being.

"That would be nice, wouldn't it? But I s'pose that's just as likely as pigs flying," Lily sighed, forgetting she lived in a world where, with a flick of the wand, pigs could fly.

"That would be simple enough, the pigs flying I mean. Just a simple Win-" James started, but Lily cut him off.

"I know that charm, thank you very much Mr. high-and-mighty. I meant without magic," Lily said as they arrived in the Great Hall. It was mostly deserted except for a few students who were sitting sleepily over their breakfast.

"I meant without magic," James mimicked and strode in front of them to the Gryffindor Table.

The rain had mostly stopped by the time they got outside to start playing Quidditch.

"Here," Lily said and took James's glasses off his face. She pointed her wand at them and said, "Impervius. It will repel the water." She handed the glasses back to James as he said his thanks in a distracted manner. Lily went to sit with Natalie and Jessica and the game started.

"And they're off," Sirius said. "Ravenclaw in possession. Wickfield to Malden. Malden to Gummidge. They attempt to score and SAVED! Douglas makes a spectacular dive and saves the ball! Gryffindor in possession. Potter to Jennings. Jennings to Lemmings. Lemmings back to Potter and he attempts and he SCORES! 10-0 Gryffindor! Ravenclaw in possession. Wickfield to Malden. Malden drops the ball and was hit by a Bludger from Blankenship. Gryffindor in possession. Lemmings to Potter. Potter to Jennings and she SCORES! 20-0 Gryffindor. Ravenclaw in possession. Malden to Gummidge. Attempt made and BLOCKED by Douglas! Gryffindor seeker, Abbot goes for the snitch and- FOUL! THAT WAS A BLOODY FOUL!" Sirius howled as he saw Ravenclaw beater, Jonathan Barkis, hit Kate Lyn Abbot over the head and knocked her own. Professor McGonagall, who was refereeing the game, gently floated her on to the ground and sent her up to the castle with Professor Reed.

"Foul on Ravenclaw. Time out for Gryffindor." Professor McGonagall called out. The Gryffindor team huddled under an umbrella that someone had brought out.

"What are we going to do, Kent?" Grace Lemmings asked worriedly. She was best friends with Kate Lyn.

"We have a reserve Chaser, so I'm going to need one of you to play Seeker. James, how about you? Do you think you could do it?" Kent asked.

"Sure. Who's our reserve Chaser?" James asked.

"Molly Halters. Here she comes." Kent said. A girl with long black hair came running up. "Molly," Kent said, "We need you to take James's place. Now, let's go and win this game!" The team mounted up on their brooms after Kent spoke to Professor McGonagall briefly.

"Gryffindor Seeker, Kate Lyn Abbot, is out for the game," Sirius said furiously. "James Potter has taken her place for the game and reserve Chaser, Molly Halters, has been brought in. Grace Lemmings throws the foul ball for Gryffindor and she misses! Ravenclaw in possession. Malden to Gummidge. Gummidge to Wickfield and back to Malden. They attempt and SCORE! 20-10 Gryffindor. Gryffindor in possession. Jennings to Lemmings. Lemmings to Halters who drops the ball. Quaffle is caught by Lemmings. Lemmings to Jennings. Jennings attempts and SCORES! 30-10 Gryffindor!" This went on her about another hour. There were no more sighting of the snitch. Finally, the score was 110-80 Gryffindor.

"Potter goes into a dive and CATCHES THE SNITCH! GRYFFINDOR WINS 260-80!" Lily rushed down to the field to find Maria.

"We did it! Maria yelled to Lily. "We won!"

Disclaimer: Maria, all the Quidditch players (except for James), Sukie, Jessica, Natalie, and Hauffle the Awful, and Professor Reed all belong to me. Everyone else belongs to the goddess, Joanne Kathleen Rowling.

Author's Note: it's 11 o'clock at night and way too late to be writing an author's note. Why am I up at 11 on a Saturday night when I have church in the morning? Well, I made a goal that I was going to get this chapter out….*blinks sleep out her eyes* and so I've been working on it…nonstop (except to take a shower, of course). This chapter didn't go to my loverly beta reader, Amanda, so if there are any mistakes blame them on me writing this at 11 o'clock at night. Anyways. I planned to say a bit about what has taken place in New York City and Washington DC (my chapter was originally dedicated to those who have and will be affect by these events, which is everyone, but since I found out about Landry's situation, I decided to change it), but its just too late and it would make the author's note way too long. I will be posting a series of 10 short stories (I have 2 of them written already) that deal with what's happened. No political views of mine are in them meaning I don't say who I thought did it or whatever. I'm writing stories from different point of views. I will not, however, be writing a story from the hijacker's POV because I cannot even fathom wanting to do something like this. *shudders* . Should these stories be called "From Sea to Shining Sea" or "Free to be Free" ? Please tell me in the review I know you're going to write. May God bless America.

Love Always,

Dorthey Star

"If we cannot end now our differences, at least we can help make the world safe for diversity. For, in the final analysis, our most common basic link is that we all inhabit this small planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children's future. And we are all mortal."

--President John F. Kennedy, 1963