Disclaimer: See chapter one. A/N: I can't find my story except to click my
"stats" button. Is there a way to have it listed or something? Or am I just
stupid?
"You saw your parents in your crystal ball?" Heather asked incredulously. "Seriously?"
Lily nodded after telling them the story for the third time. She buttered her toast and sprinkled cinnamon and sugar on top, as usual. "And Dad was holding Mum and whispering something." She paused. "It's the first time I've actually seen her, you know."
Shawna nodded sympathetically. "It must be so hard not to know who your mother is. Was," she corrected herself quickly, then winced at the harshness of her last words.
Lily didn't notice. The owls were coming in this morning as usual, and she wondered if she would receive any more unusual notes. She sighed, relieved, after the last owl left the Great Hall. It was probably a prank note, she assured herself. No sense wanting any others, was there?
For the next few weeks, as the weather grew steadily warmer and the anxiety of O.W.L.s moved in upon the fifth years, Lily had to endure Heather's babbling about her relationship with Thomas. She also had to contend with the sight of the two walking down the corridors, holding hands and gazing at each other like sick puppies. She still hadn't gotten over the fact that Thomas, the one male she adored at Hogwarts, had asked out one of her best friends. She couldn't help but watch him from a distance, though, as she did before. She worried that she was becoming too obsessive. The word "stalker" floated across her mind a few times.
"You know, Lily," Heather said ponderously one afternoon early in May as they flipped through their Charms textbooks, "Thomas has been asking me about you."
Lily jumped and looked up, her large blue eyes startled. "What?"
Heather nodded. "Stuff like what it's like being the daughter of Harry Potter. Awfully curious. Maybe on of his friends has a crush on you."
Lily frowned. "What else did he ask?"
"Oh, I don't know, umm . . . What you thought of that weird note you got, which bathroom we use the most." She laughed.
"Yeah, you know, I noticed one of his buddies, some Slytherin hunk, staring at you in the breakfast hall," Shawna offered. "I think maybe he's the one who wants to know so much about you. Or he wants to give you a swirly, or whatever they're called." She had been strangely quiet for the past few days, and Lily thought it might have been because she was secretly jealous of Heather's happiness.
Lily bit the inside of her cheek. The day before, at breakfast, she had received another note. "Beware the lair of Slytherin," it had read. Her surrounding classmates discussed what it could have meant.
"It's probably the Chamber of Secrets," Heather said immediately. "But why would you go in there? It's off-limits, and it's in the grossest bathroom."
"The one bathroom haunted by a ghost," Matilda added. "Have any of you met Moaning Myrtle? Here's some advice: don't. Bloody ghost, banging around and groaning about how she can't breathe or eat. Just come to grips with being dead, I say. Can't be that hard, she was killed about twenty years ago."
Moan . . . Secrets . . . Is that what the first note meant? Lily wondered. She marveled at the coincidence between the questions Thomas was asking and the location of the Chamber of Secrets, then wondered if it was really a coincidence at all, considering his father. Maybe her own father's suspicions were correct - maybe Thomas came from a family of betrayers and double agents. She said nothing to Heather, though, not wanting to spoil her happiness with stupid thoughts like these.
For the next few days she didn't receive any notes, but on a sunny Saturday morning another brown owl swooped down and dropped another note in her lap. Her friends looked at her expectantly, so she cleared her throat read it aloud.
" 'The Dark Lord has chosen an enemy and will become his enemy's love.' What does that mean?" Lily shook her head in confusion. Her friends looked mystified.
"Maybe you should go see Professor Granger," Heather said hesitantly.
Shawna rolled her eyes. "Look, the notes are pranks. Lame ones at that. Somebody's just trying to scare us, okay?"
"It wouldn't hurt to ask the Headmistress," said Lily thoughtfully, still staring at the carefully formed letters. "If she has any time to spare for me. I mean, she would know what to do, right?"
"Why don't you wait for a bit," Shawna suggested. "Until you get more notes, or something. You don't want to bother her, she's stressed enough. Might lose up points!"
Shawna was right. Professor Granger's usual facial expression these days was an extremely worried one. Her brows were drawn together so they formed a straight line, and ridges lined her forehead constantly. Voldemort and his followers had taken over Beauxbatons at last after a long battle. There were rumors that Hogwarts was next, and many who lived on the castle grounds were growing uneasy. She had to organize an army for emergencies, and plan what to do with the younger students who knew too little to be of aid. Not to mention be the Headmistress of Hogwarts, which is in itself very exhausting. Lily decided to mention it to a teacher. Someone a little less stressed.
After Transfiguration, as everyone left the classroom, Lily approached Professor McGonagall tentatively. "Professor?"
Her head snapped up from the paper she was grading. "Yes, Miss Potter?"
Lily swallowed. "I've been getting weird notes in the owl mail during breakfast . . . My friend said I should probably tell somebody, since they're kind of weird." She drew them from her bag, paper-clipped together, and handed them to the Professor, who sifted through them with a furrowed brow.
"Well, Miss Potter," she said after a bit, "I'm not sure what to tell you . . . They certainly are very strange notes, but for now I wouldn't worry too much. The last one sounded oddly ominous. Hmm . . . If you get any more notes like this, please do not hesitate to see me." She looked grave. "You can never be too careful."
Lily nodded and took the notes back. "Thank you, Professor. Er . . . Have a good lunch." She left the room and heard the chair creak as the Professor sank into it to grade more papers.
When she arrived at the common room that night after dinner, she found Shawna sitting in the corner, reading a thick book. She hadn't been down to eat.
"Shawna?" Lily asked. "Did you eat?"
She slammed the book shut and frowned up at Lily. "I couldn't take her anymore. Yes, I do mean Heather, don't look so surprised. I've gotten to the end of my rope. She's so . . ." She made a strangling gesture in the air, and finished lamely with, "Annoying."
Lily sank into the chair beside her. "Talking about Thomas?"
"Yes. All - the - time. Rubbing it in." She glanced darkly at Lily. "I know I sound stupid-"
"No, you don-"
"But she won't stop talking about how Thomas said this, and wasn't that so romantic, and the first time Thomas kissed her, and everything else in between. As if she needs to rub it in more!"
"Rub what in, Shawna?" Lily asked meekly. She didn't want to get on Shawna's bad side.
"That she's got a boyfriend and I don't!" she burst out angrily, causing several people to jump and peer up from their homework. They began to eavesdrop on the girls' conversation. "Look, I know I'm better looking than her. I know it! I put in so much time into my appearance and it seems like nobody notices it! But she, she just waltzes out of here with her hair in that horrendous messy bun and all of a sudden she has a boyfriend, and we're left in the dust until she comes back and relates all the little details to us! Like I care how it feels to be kissed by Thomas."
Lily sensed a pause in the tidal wave of words, and inserted what she felt to be fair to Heather and Thomas. "But it's not all about appearances," she said in a pacifying voice. "It's what's on the inside that-"
"I knew you'd say that!" Shawna growled, glaring at her. "I knew it! But even there, what does he see in her? How can he stand her, babbling on like an idiot? Why was I even friends with her in the beginning? I hate her!" she cried, then realized what she'd said. She clapped her hand to her mouth and looked horrified. "Did I just . . .?" She jumped out of her chair and ran to her dormitory, as if she'd only just noticed what a monster jealousy had made out of her. Lily stared at her hands, still digesting what she's heard spewing out of Shawna's lip-glossed mouth.
She looked up, and immediately saw five or six heads jerk back down and pretend to be concentrating extra-hard on their homework. A few kept flicking their gaze up to her, and she felt she couldn't stand it anymore. She decided to go back down to the Great Hall and see if Heather were there.
When she descended the staircase, she saw Heather rush out of the Great Hall, crying loudly. Her tears dribbled down her face and onto her robes, and she was sobbing without shame. Very alarmed, Lily ran down the rest of the stairs and chased after Heather, joined shortly by Thomas, still looking handsome even as he huffed and puffed.
"What happened?" Lily asked as they sprinted after her friend.
Thomas looked pained. "I just broke up with her, and she started bawling and ran away from me before I could calm her down or whatever. I tried to do it gently," he added when he saw Lily's angry gaze, "but she went mad or something . . ."
They found her crouched beside a statue of Cupid. "Heather." Lily bent down and squatted on the balls of her feet. "Heather, listen to me. We're going up to the dormitory, okay?" She cast around her mind for comforting things to say, but a small crowd was gathering behind them to watch the spectacle and making her nervous. "Stand up."
Heather looked up into Lily's face. Her eyes were red and puffy, her nostrils flared. She was taking gasping breaths. "Okay," she agreed feebly. She rose unsteadily, grabbing Lily's shoulder for support. She sniffled and almost said something, then noticed who was lurking behind Lily.
WHACK! Heather had charged at Thomas and smacked him fully across the face. He stood, looking shocked and stricken, while she yelled at him.
"You said you wanted to be with me!" she cried. "I thought you loved me! I thought I loved you but now I see you're a selfish, arrogant jerk!"
Thomas mumbled something, his eyes full of fear and confusion and remorse, looking down to her hands, which had balled themselves into fists.
Heather let out a whimper and relaxed her shoulders. "It's my birthday tomorrow." In a fresh burst of tears, she whirled around into Lily's arms. Lily patted her back, then began walking toward the staircase. She wasn't sure what to say, but it didn't matter because Heather was sobbing too loudly into her robes to hear. Thomas hadn't moved. Lily shot him a venomous glance over her shoulder, but she still couldn't escape the first thought that came into her head: He's single again! Mentally kicking herself in the head, she forced herself to be angry with him for hurting her friend so much. She gave the password and they crawled into the portrait hole and into their dormitory.
Thomas' handsome, shocked face wouldn't get out of her head, even as she fell asleep to Heather's occasional sniffles and sobs.
"You saw your parents in your crystal ball?" Heather asked incredulously. "Seriously?"
Lily nodded after telling them the story for the third time. She buttered her toast and sprinkled cinnamon and sugar on top, as usual. "And Dad was holding Mum and whispering something." She paused. "It's the first time I've actually seen her, you know."
Shawna nodded sympathetically. "It must be so hard not to know who your mother is. Was," she corrected herself quickly, then winced at the harshness of her last words.
Lily didn't notice. The owls were coming in this morning as usual, and she wondered if she would receive any more unusual notes. She sighed, relieved, after the last owl left the Great Hall. It was probably a prank note, she assured herself. No sense wanting any others, was there?
For the next few weeks, as the weather grew steadily warmer and the anxiety of O.W.L.s moved in upon the fifth years, Lily had to endure Heather's babbling about her relationship with Thomas. She also had to contend with the sight of the two walking down the corridors, holding hands and gazing at each other like sick puppies. She still hadn't gotten over the fact that Thomas, the one male she adored at Hogwarts, had asked out one of her best friends. She couldn't help but watch him from a distance, though, as she did before. She worried that she was becoming too obsessive. The word "stalker" floated across her mind a few times.
"You know, Lily," Heather said ponderously one afternoon early in May as they flipped through their Charms textbooks, "Thomas has been asking me about you."
Lily jumped and looked up, her large blue eyes startled. "What?"
Heather nodded. "Stuff like what it's like being the daughter of Harry Potter. Awfully curious. Maybe on of his friends has a crush on you."
Lily frowned. "What else did he ask?"
"Oh, I don't know, umm . . . What you thought of that weird note you got, which bathroom we use the most." She laughed.
"Yeah, you know, I noticed one of his buddies, some Slytherin hunk, staring at you in the breakfast hall," Shawna offered. "I think maybe he's the one who wants to know so much about you. Or he wants to give you a swirly, or whatever they're called." She had been strangely quiet for the past few days, and Lily thought it might have been because she was secretly jealous of Heather's happiness.
Lily bit the inside of her cheek. The day before, at breakfast, she had received another note. "Beware the lair of Slytherin," it had read. Her surrounding classmates discussed what it could have meant.
"It's probably the Chamber of Secrets," Heather said immediately. "But why would you go in there? It's off-limits, and it's in the grossest bathroom."
"The one bathroom haunted by a ghost," Matilda added. "Have any of you met Moaning Myrtle? Here's some advice: don't. Bloody ghost, banging around and groaning about how she can't breathe or eat. Just come to grips with being dead, I say. Can't be that hard, she was killed about twenty years ago."
Moan . . . Secrets . . . Is that what the first note meant? Lily wondered. She marveled at the coincidence between the questions Thomas was asking and the location of the Chamber of Secrets, then wondered if it was really a coincidence at all, considering his father. Maybe her own father's suspicions were correct - maybe Thomas came from a family of betrayers and double agents. She said nothing to Heather, though, not wanting to spoil her happiness with stupid thoughts like these.
For the next few days she didn't receive any notes, but on a sunny Saturday morning another brown owl swooped down and dropped another note in her lap. Her friends looked at her expectantly, so she cleared her throat read it aloud.
" 'The Dark Lord has chosen an enemy and will become his enemy's love.' What does that mean?" Lily shook her head in confusion. Her friends looked mystified.
"Maybe you should go see Professor Granger," Heather said hesitantly.
Shawna rolled her eyes. "Look, the notes are pranks. Lame ones at that. Somebody's just trying to scare us, okay?"
"It wouldn't hurt to ask the Headmistress," said Lily thoughtfully, still staring at the carefully formed letters. "If she has any time to spare for me. I mean, she would know what to do, right?"
"Why don't you wait for a bit," Shawna suggested. "Until you get more notes, or something. You don't want to bother her, she's stressed enough. Might lose up points!"
Shawna was right. Professor Granger's usual facial expression these days was an extremely worried one. Her brows were drawn together so they formed a straight line, and ridges lined her forehead constantly. Voldemort and his followers had taken over Beauxbatons at last after a long battle. There were rumors that Hogwarts was next, and many who lived on the castle grounds were growing uneasy. She had to organize an army for emergencies, and plan what to do with the younger students who knew too little to be of aid. Not to mention be the Headmistress of Hogwarts, which is in itself very exhausting. Lily decided to mention it to a teacher. Someone a little less stressed.
After Transfiguration, as everyone left the classroom, Lily approached Professor McGonagall tentatively. "Professor?"
Her head snapped up from the paper she was grading. "Yes, Miss Potter?"
Lily swallowed. "I've been getting weird notes in the owl mail during breakfast . . . My friend said I should probably tell somebody, since they're kind of weird." She drew them from her bag, paper-clipped together, and handed them to the Professor, who sifted through them with a furrowed brow.
"Well, Miss Potter," she said after a bit, "I'm not sure what to tell you . . . They certainly are very strange notes, but for now I wouldn't worry too much. The last one sounded oddly ominous. Hmm . . . If you get any more notes like this, please do not hesitate to see me." She looked grave. "You can never be too careful."
Lily nodded and took the notes back. "Thank you, Professor. Er . . . Have a good lunch." She left the room and heard the chair creak as the Professor sank into it to grade more papers.
When she arrived at the common room that night after dinner, she found Shawna sitting in the corner, reading a thick book. She hadn't been down to eat.
"Shawna?" Lily asked. "Did you eat?"
She slammed the book shut and frowned up at Lily. "I couldn't take her anymore. Yes, I do mean Heather, don't look so surprised. I've gotten to the end of my rope. She's so . . ." She made a strangling gesture in the air, and finished lamely with, "Annoying."
Lily sank into the chair beside her. "Talking about Thomas?"
"Yes. All - the - time. Rubbing it in." She glanced darkly at Lily. "I know I sound stupid-"
"No, you don-"
"But she won't stop talking about how Thomas said this, and wasn't that so romantic, and the first time Thomas kissed her, and everything else in between. As if she needs to rub it in more!"
"Rub what in, Shawna?" Lily asked meekly. She didn't want to get on Shawna's bad side.
"That she's got a boyfriend and I don't!" she burst out angrily, causing several people to jump and peer up from their homework. They began to eavesdrop on the girls' conversation. "Look, I know I'm better looking than her. I know it! I put in so much time into my appearance and it seems like nobody notices it! But she, she just waltzes out of here with her hair in that horrendous messy bun and all of a sudden she has a boyfriend, and we're left in the dust until she comes back and relates all the little details to us! Like I care how it feels to be kissed by Thomas."
Lily sensed a pause in the tidal wave of words, and inserted what she felt to be fair to Heather and Thomas. "But it's not all about appearances," she said in a pacifying voice. "It's what's on the inside that-"
"I knew you'd say that!" Shawna growled, glaring at her. "I knew it! But even there, what does he see in her? How can he stand her, babbling on like an idiot? Why was I even friends with her in the beginning? I hate her!" she cried, then realized what she'd said. She clapped her hand to her mouth and looked horrified. "Did I just . . .?" She jumped out of her chair and ran to her dormitory, as if she'd only just noticed what a monster jealousy had made out of her. Lily stared at her hands, still digesting what she's heard spewing out of Shawna's lip-glossed mouth.
She looked up, and immediately saw five or six heads jerk back down and pretend to be concentrating extra-hard on their homework. A few kept flicking their gaze up to her, and she felt she couldn't stand it anymore. She decided to go back down to the Great Hall and see if Heather were there.
When she descended the staircase, she saw Heather rush out of the Great Hall, crying loudly. Her tears dribbled down her face and onto her robes, and she was sobbing without shame. Very alarmed, Lily ran down the rest of the stairs and chased after Heather, joined shortly by Thomas, still looking handsome even as he huffed and puffed.
"What happened?" Lily asked as they sprinted after her friend.
Thomas looked pained. "I just broke up with her, and she started bawling and ran away from me before I could calm her down or whatever. I tried to do it gently," he added when he saw Lily's angry gaze, "but she went mad or something . . ."
They found her crouched beside a statue of Cupid. "Heather." Lily bent down and squatted on the balls of her feet. "Heather, listen to me. We're going up to the dormitory, okay?" She cast around her mind for comforting things to say, but a small crowd was gathering behind them to watch the spectacle and making her nervous. "Stand up."
Heather looked up into Lily's face. Her eyes were red and puffy, her nostrils flared. She was taking gasping breaths. "Okay," she agreed feebly. She rose unsteadily, grabbing Lily's shoulder for support. She sniffled and almost said something, then noticed who was lurking behind Lily.
WHACK! Heather had charged at Thomas and smacked him fully across the face. He stood, looking shocked and stricken, while she yelled at him.
"You said you wanted to be with me!" she cried. "I thought you loved me! I thought I loved you but now I see you're a selfish, arrogant jerk!"
Thomas mumbled something, his eyes full of fear and confusion and remorse, looking down to her hands, which had balled themselves into fists.
Heather let out a whimper and relaxed her shoulders. "It's my birthday tomorrow." In a fresh burst of tears, she whirled around into Lily's arms. Lily patted her back, then began walking toward the staircase. She wasn't sure what to say, but it didn't matter because Heather was sobbing too loudly into her robes to hear. Thomas hadn't moved. Lily shot him a venomous glance over her shoulder, but she still couldn't escape the first thought that came into her head: He's single again! Mentally kicking herself in the head, she forced herself to be angry with him for hurting her friend so much. She gave the password and they crawled into the portrait hole and into their dormitory.
Thomas' handsome, shocked face wouldn't get out of her head, even as she fell asleep to Heather's occasional sniffles and sobs.
