Hello! Was it just me or was fanfiction.net really weird for the last couple of days... I think it was. But I don't trust my computer anymore... So. Here's your chappie!
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Lily woke up the next morning and went into the Great Hall to eat breakfast. She got two extra hours of sleep that morning that she really needed. She noticed Shay and Minnie and walked over to sit with them. They had breakfast and while Shay and Minnie went off to the library, Lily had to stay to prepare for the Halloween feast, which was to take place later that day. Everyone went out slowly and only the prefects and the teachers were left in the hall.
"'ello!" A booming voice sounded through the hall. Rubeus Hagrid, the gamekeeper of Hogwarts, stomped in. He was at least 8 feet tall and had a wild beard with gentle beady eyes. "The pumpkins are out in my garden. Just go and …" He stopped to think what he was going to say. He waved his hand carelessly and said, "do whatever you guys do."
The prefects and the teachers walked to the garden, filled with huge bright orange pumpkins.
"Prefects, you will carve the pumpkins in whatever shape your desire leads you to and take the pumpkin to the Great Hall. Teachers will be waiting in there to enchant them." Professor Dumbledore said. Then he walked to Lily and James.
"Miss Evans. I talked to Mr. Gringley this morning. He got detention for a month and he was forced to drop Care of Magical Creatures and take Divination. I'm very glad you were honest with me." He said, his eyes smiling.
"Thank you sir." Lily said, smiling. Then he left with the other teachers.
Lily levitated a round pumpkin and set it in front of her on the grass. James followed the suit and set his next to hers.
"Lily, are you okay?" James said quietly, noticing Lily had been very quiet. Lily jumped and exhaled.
"I don't know if I did the right thing. I mean, I know this is the right thing. But I don't know if it was the good thing for me." She said. "I'm worried about Storm… and myself."
"Lily…" James said. "Storm will be all right. She can take care of herself. She's getting her health back. And I'll protect you Lily. Don't worry about that. I won't let anyone touch you. Okay? Got that?"
Lily merely nodded.
"What did Malfoy say to you last week, while we were moving the beds?" James asked.
"He… he said that…" Lily stopped. "I don't want to talk about it."
"Okay." James said, disappointed. 'It must've been bad.' He thought. They cut a hole on the top of the pumpkin and scooped the inside out. Then they carved their jack-o-lanterns and levitated it to the Great Hall. They were the first ones there. They brought it to Professor McGonagall and she sprinkled some strange looking pebbles and muttered some incantations which made them glow brightly. Then she made them stay afloat between the ceiling and the tables.
"Is that it?" James asked, impatient to see the potion for his shoulder and talk of a new prank coming up.
"Yes. You may go now." Professor McGonagall said, eyeing him suspiciously.
Lily was going to go straight to the library where she was to meet Shay and Minnie. Her face fell when James left the other direction, she didn't want to walk to the library alone. 'Stop being a baby Lily. Get a grip.' But then her other voice began to talk. 'What if he's hiding in a dark corner, waiting to attack or something?' Just then, James turned around, remembering Lily. He walked back.
"Hey Lily, where you going to go now?" He asked.
"The library." Lily said, shuffling her feet. He noticed her uneasiness and remembered what she had said that morning.
"Do you want me to walk you there?" James said, smiling at her now beaming face. 'Whew!' Lily thought. She had a feeling that the first voice was rolling its eyes. Lily nodded and they walked to the library. He dropped her there and left. She walked around and looked for Shay and Minnie. She was walking down a row of tables when she tripped on a foot, sticking out from one of the tables. She fell flat on her face, yelling "Ow!". There were a few sniggers across the room. She turned around, to see whose foot it has been, her face blushing. She was greeted with Gringley's mean face.
"Oops. Sorry Mudblood. My foot just slipped out… like how some words happened to slip out from your mouth last night." His eyes narrowed into slits. And he opened his mouth, 'to threaten me' Lily thought, when Madame Pince, the thin irritable librarian bustled into the scene.
"Is there a problem?" She burst, her hands on her hips.
"No madam. It just seems like Evans here lost her footing… out of all the places, in the library, which she should know very well, supposedly being very smart." He drawled. Madame Pince 'hmph'ed and strolled around the tables. Lily glared at Gringley and went off to sit with Shay and Minnie, who were sitting at the far table, by the window.
"Lily, what's his problem?" Shay asked, eyeing the smirking Slytherins in the table across the room.
"He was making me do his homework so I told Professor Dumbledore." Lily said, putting her stuff down and taking out her homework.
"You go Lily! Remember Verona? She couldn't tell anyone until the end of the year that they were making her do their homework." Shay said proudly.
"Yeah…" Lily said smiling, but knowing inside that she didn't tell Professor Dumbledore voluntarily… not exactly. If she didn't tell James, she didn't know if she would've really told him. They did their homework until it was time for lunch. They ate quickly and got all of their weekend homework done before the Halloween feast. They had thirty minutes to spare and decided to go to the Common Room. The marauders weren't there, which wasn't surprising. 'Why would they be doing homework on a Saturday night, before a feast?' Lily thought. 'Probably setting up a prank or something.' Lily, Shay, and Minnie sat around the fire, talking. Soon it was 7 pm, time for the feast.
The Gryffindors left as a big group to the Great Hall. They were the first ones there. It looked better in the evening, than the lunchtime. The sky was dark and there was a thin sheet of grey cloud enveloping the sky. A few bright stars and the moon [don't worry, three quarters, not full] shone faintly through. The small pumpkins floated above the carved jack-o-lanterns which were strangely talking to each other.
"Wha…" Minnie stood open mouthed as one of the jack-o-lanterns shouted 'Here they come!' The jack-o-lanterns made funny faces as the students stared at the pumpkins.
"Excuse me!" Professor McGonagall shouted as she squeezed her way through. She stopped abruptly when she saw and heard the laughing pumpkins. "Who did this!" Her contorted face made everyone laugh as she tried not to laugh, but look furious.
" We'll just carry on with our feast as planned. The pumpkins won't harm us, they're stationary. But, I am very angry at whoever did this," Professor Dumbledore walked from behind everyone. His face was expressionless. Then the corners of his mouth curled into a smile. "nonetheless, a little bit pleased, this must've taken advanced magic." He said as he shrugged and looked in the Marauders way, who mysteriously appeared in the crowd.
Everyone sat by their houses. Some conversed with the pumpkins while the rest tried to ignore them, as some were quite rude and loud.
"Aren't they brilliant?" Sirius asked.
Lily, Shay and Minnie started laughing.
"I knew it was you guys!" Shay said. "How did you do this?"
"I really don't know. I came up with the idea and James and Remus pulled it off." Sirius said, shrugging.
Everyone ate until they were stuffed. A few people began to yawn but some, such as the Marauders, were active as ever and were chatting loudly. The jack-o-lanterns began to grow sleepy as well. One of them fell asleep and started to drool pumpkin puree on a Hufflepuff third year girl. She shrieked and ran to the bathroom to wash the "drool" out of her hair. One by one, people left the Great Hall and headed for bed. Lily, Shay, Minnie, and the Marauders were the last ones. Shay and Minnie got tired and headed up to bed while Lily talked with Remus and James. Soon everyone went to bed. Lily stared into the ceiling, pleasant thoughts running through her head.
The next morning was a cold grey November day, and so were the following couple of days. Lily wrapped herself with scarves, hats, and mittens before she went out to Double Care of Magical Creatures. They were now studying winter plants in Herbology. Lily always felt like she was being glared by the three Slytherins. But James was usually with her between passing times, and if not, it was Remus or Shay. The Quidditch team was now getting restless due to the now boring practices, going over strategies. On Thursday evening dinner, Riley couldn't hold it in anymore.
"James" Riley burst, after many tight-lipped days around him.
"Yeah?" He said, looking up from his food. He looked mildly surprised at her outburst after the days of suppressed quietness.
"I want to play Quidditch." Riley said, slapping her hands on the table, narrowly missing a plate of lasagna.
"You are, you're on the Quidditch Team Riley." James said, raising his eyebrows. Slowly, lowering his spoon.
"I want to play real Quidditch. I understand strategy is a big part of it, but we really need to get out there and play… for real!" Riley said.
James looked at Riley and Shay, who was sitting next to Riley, uncomfortably.
"We're going to start out regular practices starting next Monday." He said. He nudged Sirius. He looked startled. James repeated what he had just said. Sirius looked like he was calculating something under his breath.
"Yup!" Sirius said happily after a few seconds. Shay and Riley gave them both funny looks but were satisfied. Everyone got done eating and the tables were cleared.
Friday went by slowly and so did Saturday. Lily and James worked on the rooms all day and got it done. After dinner, James went to the Shrieking where Sirius, Remus, and Peter were finishing up the potion. He was walking through the passage, leading to the wooden door. He heard voices.
"I don't know what went wrong! I added 5 pinches of the red colored powder thing." Peter said.
"Peter! There are a lot of red colored powders! Which one did you put in?" Sirius said, getting impatient.
"The one with the faded label. I couldn't read it." He said.
"That's supposed to be the right one." Remus said calmly. Then, James walked in. The creamy colored potion seemed to have exploded and Sirius, Remus, and Peter all had sticky creamy colored liquid dripping from their hair.
"Oh my god." James said, looking at the mess.
"It's okay James, all you need is like a spoonful and we still got some left in the cauldron." Remus said.
"What the hell happened?" He said, walking and touching the white potion that was strewn on a chair. Sirius and Remus just looked at Peter.
"I-I just added the red powder thing like I was supposed to, and it just exploded!" He said, flailing his arms widely.
"It's okay Peter. We still have some of the potion left and the color looks right. We just need one last ingredient: shredded skin of boomslang. Right?" He asked Sirius and Remus.
They nodded grimly and held up a soggy Petri dish that looked like soup with very thin noodles.
"Oh no." James muttered and plopped down on a chair that was covered in goop. "Yuck!" He said, standing straight back up. "So we'll just need to somehow get more of those and it will be done." He said.
"Yeah. I know Professor Vickson doesn't have any, we took the last jar." Sirius said. Professor Vickson was their Potions teacher.
"There's someone I know who might have the ingredient." Peter said hopefully.
"Who?" They all asked at the same time.
"He's a Slytherin though." Peter said, raising his eyebrows. Everyone just waited for him to say something. "Snape."
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Gosh. Making chapter titles are the hardest thing in the world! This one's really boring... Halloween Feast.
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Lily woke up the next morning and went into the Great Hall to eat breakfast. She got two extra hours of sleep that morning that she really needed. She noticed Shay and Minnie and walked over to sit with them. They had breakfast and while Shay and Minnie went off to the library, Lily had to stay to prepare for the Halloween feast, which was to take place later that day. Everyone went out slowly and only the prefects and the teachers were left in the hall.
"'ello!" A booming voice sounded through the hall. Rubeus Hagrid, the gamekeeper of Hogwarts, stomped in. He was at least 8 feet tall and had a wild beard with gentle beady eyes. "The pumpkins are out in my garden. Just go and …" He stopped to think what he was going to say. He waved his hand carelessly and said, "do whatever you guys do."
The prefects and the teachers walked to the garden, filled with huge bright orange pumpkins.
"Prefects, you will carve the pumpkins in whatever shape your desire leads you to and take the pumpkin to the Great Hall. Teachers will be waiting in there to enchant them." Professor Dumbledore said. Then he walked to Lily and James.
"Miss Evans. I talked to Mr. Gringley this morning. He got detention for a month and he was forced to drop Care of Magical Creatures and take Divination. I'm very glad you were honest with me." He said, his eyes smiling.
"Thank you sir." Lily said, smiling. Then he left with the other teachers.
Lily levitated a round pumpkin and set it in front of her on the grass. James followed the suit and set his next to hers.
"Lily, are you okay?" James said quietly, noticing Lily had been very quiet. Lily jumped and exhaled.
"I don't know if I did the right thing. I mean, I know this is the right thing. But I don't know if it was the good thing for me." She said. "I'm worried about Storm… and myself."
"Lily…" James said. "Storm will be all right. She can take care of herself. She's getting her health back. And I'll protect you Lily. Don't worry about that. I won't let anyone touch you. Okay? Got that?"
Lily merely nodded.
"What did Malfoy say to you last week, while we were moving the beds?" James asked.
"He… he said that…" Lily stopped. "I don't want to talk about it."
"Okay." James said, disappointed. 'It must've been bad.' He thought. They cut a hole on the top of the pumpkin and scooped the inside out. Then they carved their jack-o-lanterns and levitated it to the Great Hall. They were the first ones there. They brought it to Professor McGonagall and she sprinkled some strange looking pebbles and muttered some incantations which made them glow brightly. Then she made them stay afloat between the ceiling and the tables.
"Is that it?" James asked, impatient to see the potion for his shoulder and talk of a new prank coming up.
"Yes. You may go now." Professor McGonagall said, eyeing him suspiciously.
Lily was going to go straight to the library where she was to meet Shay and Minnie. Her face fell when James left the other direction, she didn't want to walk to the library alone. 'Stop being a baby Lily. Get a grip.' But then her other voice began to talk. 'What if he's hiding in a dark corner, waiting to attack or something?' Just then, James turned around, remembering Lily. He walked back.
"Hey Lily, where you going to go now?" He asked.
"The library." Lily said, shuffling her feet. He noticed her uneasiness and remembered what she had said that morning.
"Do you want me to walk you there?" James said, smiling at her now beaming face. 'Whew!' Lily thought. She had a feeling that the first voice was rolling its eyes. Lily nodded and they walked to the library. He dropped her there and left. She walked around and looked for Shay and Minnie. She was walking down a row of tables when she tripped on a foot, sticking out from one of the tables. She fell flat on her face, yelling "Ow!". There were a few sniggers across the room. She turned around, to see whose foot it has been, her face blushing. She was greeted with Gringley's mean face.
"Oops. Sorry Mudblood. My foot just slipped out… like how some words happened to slip out from your mouth last night." His eyes narrowed into slits. And he opened his mouth, 'to threaten me' Lily thought, when Madame Pince, the thin irritable librarian bustled into the scene.
"Is there a problem?" She burst, her hands on her hips.
"No madam. It just seems like Evans here lost her footing… out of all the places, in the library, which she should know very well, supposedly being very smart." He drawled. Madame Pince 'hmph'ed and strolled around the tables. Lily glared at Gringley and went off to sit with Shay and Minnie, who were sitting at the far table, by the window.
"Lily, what's his problem?" Shay asked, eyeing the smirking Slytherins in the table across the room.
"He was making me do his homework so I told Professor Dumbledore." Lily said, putting her stuff down and taking out her homework.
"You go Lily! Remember Verona? She couldn't tell anyone until the end of the year that they were making her do their homework." Shay said proudly.
"Yeah…" Lily said smiling, but knowing inside that she didn't tell Professor Dumbledore voluntarily… not exactly. If she didn't tell James, she didn't know if she would've really told him. They did their homework until it was time for lunch. They ate quickly and got all of their weekend homework done before the Halloween feast. They had thirty minutes to spare and decided to go to the Common Room. The marauders weren't there, which wasn't surprising. 'Why would they be doing homework on a Saturday night, before a feast?' Lily thought. 'Probably setting up a prank or something.' Lily, Shay, and Minnie sat around the fire, talking. Soon it was 7 pm, time for the feast.
The Gryffindors left as a big group to the Great Hall. They were the first ones there. It looked better in the evening, than the lunchtime. The sky was dark and there was a thin sheet of grey cloud enveloping the sky. A few bright stars and the moon [don't worry, three quarters, not full] shone faintly through. The small pumpkins floated above the carved jack-o-lanterns which were strangely talking to each other.
"Wha…" Minnie stood open mouthed as one of the jack-o-lanterns shouted 'Here they come!' The jack-o-lanterns made funny faces as the students stared at the pumpkins.
"Excuse me!" Professor McGonagall shouted as she squeezed her way through. She stopped abruptly when she saw and heard the laughing pumpkins. "Who did this!" Her contorted face made everyone laugh as she tried not to laugh, but look furious.
" We'll just carry on with our feast as planned. The pumpkins won't harm us, they're stationary. But, I am very angry at whoever did this," Professor Dumbledore walked from behind everyone. His face was expressionless. Then the corners of his mouth curled into a smile. "nonetheless, a little bit pleased, this must've taken advanced magic." He said as he shrugged and looked in the Marauders way, who mysteriously appeared in the crowd.
Everyone sat by their houses. Some conversed with the pumpkins while the rest tried to ignore them, as some were quite rude and loud.
"Aren't they brilliant?" Sirius asked.
Lily, Shay and Minnie started laughing.
"I knew it was you guys!" Shay said. "How did you do this?"
"I really don't know. I came up with the idea and James and Remus pulled it off." Sirius said, shrugging.
Everyone ate until they were stuffed. A few people began to yawn but some, such as the Marauders, were active as ever and were chatting loudly. The jack-o-lanterns began to grow sleepy as well. One of them fell asleep and started to drool pumpkin puree on a Hufflepuff third year girl. She shrieked and ran to the bathroom to wash the "drool" out of her hair. One by one, people left the Great Hall and headed for bed. Lily, Shay, Minnie, and the Marauders were the last ones. Shay and Minnie got tired and headed up to bed while Lily talked with Remus and James. Soon everyone went to bed. Lily stared into the ceiling, pleasant thoughts running through her head.
The next morning was a cold grey November day, and so were the following couple of days. Lily wrapped herself with scarves, hats, and mittens before she went out to Double Care of Magical Creatures. They were now studying winter plants in Herbology. Lily always felt like she was being glared by the three Slytherins. But James was usually with her between passing times, and if not, it was Remus or Shay. The Quidditch team was now getting restless due to the now boring practices, going over strategies. On Thursday evening dinner, Riley couldn't hold it in anymore.
"James" Riley burst, after many tight-lipped days around him.
"Yeah?" He said, looking up from his food. He looked mildly surprised at her outburst after the days of suppressed quietness.
"I want to play Quidditch." Riley said, slapping her hands on the table, narrowly missing a plate of lasagna.
"You are, you're on the Quidditch Team Riley." James said, raising his eyebrows. Slowly, lowering his spoon.
"I want to play real Quidditch. I understand strategy is a big part of it, but we really need to get out there and play… for real!" Riley said.
James looked at Riley and Shay, who was sitting next to Riley, uncomfortably.
"We're going to start out regular practices starting next Monday." He said. He nudged Sirius. He looked startled. James repeated what he had just said. Sirius looked like he was calculating something under his breath.
"Yup!" Sirius said happily after a few seconds. Shay and Riley gave them both funny looks but were satisfied. Everyone got done eating and the tables were cleared.
Friday went by slowly and so did Saturday. Lily and James worked on the rooms all day and got it done. After dinner, James went to the Shrieking where Sirius, Remus, and Peter were finishing up the potion. He was walking through the passage, leading to the wooden door. He heard voices.
"I don't know what went wrong! I added 5 pinches of the red colored powder thing." Peter said.
"Peter! There are a lot of red colored powders! Which one did you put in?" Sirius said, getting impatient.
"The one with the faded label. I couldn't read it." He said.
"That's supposed to be the right one." Remus said calmly. Then, James walked in. The creamy colored potion seemed to have exploded and Sirius, Remus, and Peter all had sticky creamy colored liquid dripping from their hair.
"Oh my god." James said, looking at the mess.
"It's okay James, all you need is like a spoonful and we still got some left in the cauldron." Remus said.
"What the hell happened?" He said, walking and touching the white potion that was strewn on a chair. Sirius and Remus just looked at Peter.
"I-I just added the red powder thing like I was supposed to, and it just exploded!" He said, flailing his arms widely.
"It's okay Peter. We still have some of the potion left and the color looks right. We just need one last ingredient: shredded skin of boomslang. Right?" He asked Sirius and Remus.
They nodded grimly and held up a soggy Petri dish that looked like soup with very thin noodles.
"Oh no." James muttered and plopped down on a chair that was covered in goop. "Yuck!" He said, standing straight back up. "So we'll just need to somehow get more of those and it will be done." He said.
"Yeah. I know Professor Vickson doesn't have any, we took the last jar." Sirius said. Professor Vickson was their Potions teacher.
"There's someone I know who might have the ingredient." Peter said hopefully.
"Who?" They all asked at the same time.
"He's a Slytherin though." Peter said, raising his eyebrows. Everyone just waited for him to say something. "Snape."
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Gosh. Making chapter titles are the hardest thing in the world! This one's really boring... Halloween Feast.
