Surprise greetings
"Evans?" a male voice said making Lily wake up with a start and turn to face the direction the voice had come from. Lily had gotten to Hogwarts late the night before and had collapsed in exhaustion on the couch, and fallen asleep in her clothes only to be woken in a dishevelled mess the next morning by a taller, even more handsome; James Potter. She smiled at him, surprised he remembered, insignificant Lily Evans who had left over a year ago.
"Morning James," she said straitening her robes and picking up her trunk that she had dumped next to the chair the night before. He grinned looking her up and down, noting she now had curves and was no longer the shapeless, unimportant Evens of the past. "I'll see you down at breakfast then," Lily said gracefully brushing past him to the girls common room pausing at the bottom of the stairs to look back at him, a smile still lighting up her face.
"Yeah, cya Evans" James said softly to her retreating back, slightly thrown by her sudden appearance back at school, but after all Dumbledore let Remus stay – and he was after all a werewolf, not that this mattered to James. If fact it made a great monthly adventure – but Dumbledore did believe in second chances, maybe that was why Evans was back.
Lily dragged her trunk up the stairs and to her surprise just as she reached the door it was flung open and she found herself face to face with Carma. Carma threw her arms around Lily hugging her close before leaning back to admire her long-lost best friend. They laughed as Lily put out her pinky in the old greeting from first year, Carma linked hers and they each tugged as hard as they could, as if to break the others finger. Carma grabbed Lily's trunk and hustled her inside the dorm announcing aloud – "Guys; LILY'S BACK!" at the top of her voice causing girls to appear from around the hangings and head to lean out of the bathroom trying to work out what Carma was yelling about over the sound of the showers. A huddle quickly formed around Lily and Carma as everyone welcomed her home except Lotti and Bec whose sour faces could be seen poking out of the bathroom with half done hair and too much make-up. Carma set up Lily in the bed next to hers while Lily had a shower, then together they joined the rest of the school in the Great Hall for breakfast.
Dumbledore welcomed the students back who had left the year before and reminded everyone that Filch would not tolerate the disturbance or vandalism of his halls and those caught would be subject to detention. The conversation swirled around Lily with everyone filling her in on the year she'd missed and soon she hardly remembered why she had ever wanted to stay away, especially when she caught James eye on the way to Charms. But in the lessons it was another story as she tried to remember all that she had read on the train – she had no idea how she was meant to write the three roles of parchment due on the uses of repelling charms though the charm itself wasn't to difficult.
Unconsciously at first but later with determination James and Lily battled head-to-head for the top marks in their subjects, if James got an E (exceeds expectations) in transfiguration then Lily worked for an O (outstanding) in potions. Carma was the first to notice the friendly rivalry forming between them but said nothing instead watching and waiting – Lily would tell her eventually but in the mean time why not just let it play out.
Just think of it, Lily and James – together?!?! Quidditch king and Intelligent queen of fairness. She made a mental note to ask Sirius next Transfig. class.
A very different kind of Magic
"There are two kinds of Protection spells, can anyone tell me what they are?" Professor Maxstead asked already knowing who would know the answer. A lone fine boned hand was raised, but still Professor Maxstead waited. When no other hands appeared she turned to the owner of the hand, "Miss Evans?" she said smiling despite herself.
"The first type of protection spell is the secret-keeper spell which keeps those protected from being found by anyone but the secret keeper who performed the spell unless they have heard it from the secret keeper themselves. The second type; potectus totalis is a less complex spell that protects a loved one from any immediate danger." Lily said with a grim smile as though parting with the knowledge pained her.
"Excellent Miss Evans, 10 points to Gryffindor. Today we are going to try potectus totalis but this is a very difficult charm and I do not expect it to have much affect, and tonight for home work I would like two rolls of parchment on the uses of this charm and why it is studied in Defence Against the Dark arts and not in charms. So pair up and we'll begin. No, not Sirius thank-you Mr Potter; you can go with Remus and Mr Black can be with Mr Weasly." She said heading James off in his attempt to grab Sirius before she noticed and sent them off to opposite sides of the class room. "Now raise your wands and follow my wand as you swish and tap. That's it, now all together; swish and tap." She said making what looked to Lotti like a very simple movement, but when she tried it she ended up nearly poking Lily's eye out with her wand.
"No you stupid girl! You must swish first! Maybe you'd better go with Mr Lupin, see if he can prevent you doing anymore harm to anyone else." She said grabbing Lotti's wand and dragging her off to where James and Remus were standing. James had just cast the spell on Remus when he found himself stuck with Evans instead. There was an uneasy pause where they just looked at each other, Lily broke the silence. "Sorry about splitting you up from Remus, umm…shall I go first?" she said when he waved away her apology but said nothing. He nodded and before he knew what had hit him he felt surprisingly light, just as he was getting used to the feeling a pillow came flying across the room at him but before he could put out his hands to catch it, it stopped as though hitting a brick wall and fell to the ground at his feat.
"Excellent, Miss Evans has done it; another 10 points to Gryffindor." Professor Maxstead said coming over to where he and Lily were standing, "Once the spell is performed it repels anything that could be of any danger to the recipient, as demonstrated by Miss Evens with the pillow." James grinned, trust Evans to find something to throw at him to test her charm work.
He drew his wand; then swished and tapped repeating the charm this time on Lily, he could see from the surprise on her face that it had worked but just to be sure he grabbed the pillow and chucked it back at her. Soon the air was thick with pillows conjured up by Professor Maxstead after seeing how well they had worked in testing Lily and James' charms. There was the occasional thud of someone being hit by one of the pillows but most peoples simply bounced off their protective barrier.
James wanted to see just how powerful these barriers were and cast the portrificas totalis on Lily and was horrified to see her limbs snap her sides as she toppled over. James dived forwards to catch her but forgot the protection charm that kept him from catching her as she simply bounced off.
Professor Maxsted was there within seconds of Lily hitting the floor, quickly removing the spell and turning sharply to face James who had gone red with shame. "That Mr Potter was very irri…" she began angrily but was interrupted by the now recovered Lily "It's alright Professor, I asked him to do it. I wanted to see whether it would repel spells too." She said quickly coming to James' defence.
Professor Maxstead hesitated, maybe she should have explained that first and it wasn't like Potter had tried to hurt her – but there was something that didn't fit. How did Lily know so much about the charm and yet not know that it didn't work on spells? She decided to leave it; she needed more time to consider that one. Instead she turned back to the rest of the class, "As you have just seen, this does not stop spells but it does stop physical injury such as someone falling on you or being hit by a flying object. Except of course in wizard games such as Quidditch, as the stadium counteracts the charm to ensure a fair game." At that moment the bell rang, they grabbed their books and headed for the door before she could set anymore home work. James caught up to Lily as she weaved in and out of the crowd of people in an attempt to catch up to Carma who was way ahead of them.
"Umm…Lily?" she turned her head, a single eyebrow rising at the sight of James walking beside her. "Sorry about cursing you, I thought it would just bounce off like the pillows did…" Lily smiled at him, making him pause again as a shiver of happiness ran down his spine – she was smiling at him. "…and thanks for saving my neck in Defence Against the Dark Arts, I was sure I'd get a detention for that one." This time Lily laughed: "it was the least I could do," she said leaving him standing with his mouth open, staring after her, as she disappeared back into the moving crowd to find her friends.
"Prongs!" Sirius said clapping an arm around James' shoulders, bringing him back out of his thoughts. "Hey what's up with you?" he asked when James still didn't respond.
"Wha…oh, hey Padfoot!" James said wrenching his eyes from where Lily had disappeared, and back to his best friend. "It's nothing don't worry, what've we got next?" he said trying to change the subject.
"You must be sick, how could you forget Lunch?" Sirius said looking at his friend in horror. Food was Sirius' favourite thing in the world and James swore he thought about it every second of the day.
"C'mon then we'd better hurry, we don't want to miss the best of it." James said knowing Sirius would have forgotten about his strange behaviour by the time they got out of the great hall.
To James' surprise, Peter and Remus were sitting next to Lily and Carma when they arrived having left two places one next to Carma and one next to Lily for him and Sirius. Sirius plonked down next to Carma and started piling his plate with everything within reach and James was left to sit next to Lily.
