I/A/N (Important Author's Note): The title of this story has changed! I finally thought up a better one! In case you didn't notice, it's called Indifference … see if you can guess why. I changed the earlier chapters so now they all have the same title.
Best Enemies
By snowflakey
Chapter 3
"You're a genius, Lily Evans," the redhead told herself as she walked as quickly as she could without looking stupid to Dumbledore's office. She already knew where it was, having had visited it many times during her five years at Hogwarts for various reasons. Well, all for the same reason, but it was a different prank every time, thank you very much. The password was never hard to guess, and after naming many different varieties of muggle and magical lollies, gained access to the spiral staircase leading up to Professor Dumbledore's office.
Lily hesitated outside the door for a moment, and then
knocked softly. Nobody answered, so she knocked a little louder. After a while,
she put her ear to the door and listened, but heard only the mumbling of the
portraits as they either slept or chattered. Of course Dumbledore isn't
here. she told herself. He's got other
important things to do. She turned and headed back downstairs, resolving to
come back later.
But she didn't have the chance to do this, however, for quite some time.
Dumbledore was nowhere to be seen, either in the corridors or at the staff
table in the Great Hall. Lily and her friends contended themselves by lazing
the days away outside, all having decided to stay at Hogwarts over the summer,
having picnics and the like in front of the Lake, and spending quality time
with "Bob" (The giant squid). After a few days Hayley returned to her normal
self, laughing and joking, but sometimes it seemed a bit fake,
as though she was still grieving inside.
Although the girls were relaxed and lazy during the day, at night was an
entirely different story. For their own amusement and a challenge, they had
decided to become Animagi, and all they needed to do to finish was add the
final ingredients to the potion, which had been brewing over the holidays in
the fourth/fifth year girl's dormitories (A/N: in my fanfic
they keep the same dorm room for all 7 years. Call it artistic license.) .
After drinking the potion, if all went well they would each perform the charm
that enabled them to turn into the animal they wished. However, to the normal,
sane person, the risk of becoming an Animagi at fifteen was greater than the
reward. However, Lily, Hayley and Michelle weren't normal or sane, and were
therefore eager to finish. For this very reason, they were looking up a spell
which would enable them to become invisible for a short period of time to find
the book again, which they had returned to the "Restricted Section" of the
library at the end of the previous year.
"I haven't been able to find the one we wanted," Lily reported to her friends
at dinner about three days after the attacks. "But I did find one that will do
the same thing. It's called the Chameleon charm, where we can blend into the
walls,"
"Cool," Hayley and Michelle
At that moment, the prank they had spent the morning rigging up was set into
action, and the greater portion of the hall burst into laughter.
The thing that the greater portion of the hall was laughing
at was the Slytherin table. Instead on being the ordinary wooden colour with
white plates and silver cutlery, everything was now a different shade of pink.
Light pink, dark pink, hot pink … the very sight of it was hilarious. The table
had streamers, hearts and big pink cakes in the middle. But what was even more funny was the sight of the actual Slytherins
themselves. Each now had pink robes, and 3 of the boys Lily, Hayley and
Michelle hated most were climbing on top of the table. The girls grinned at
each other. So far, all was going well. Lily glanced down the far end of the
table where the Marauders were sitting. Each had a look of horror upon his
face. Lily grinned even wider, thinking that they were shocked that their rival
group had pulled off such an original prank. She turned her attention back to
the Slytherin table, where Lucius Malfoy, William Avery and Severus Snape were
standing, judging from the looks on their faces, against their will. Background
music started and they began to sign in unnaturally high falsetto voices, their
voices magically magnified.
"Stupid cupid you're a real mean guy" (stupid cupid)
"I'd like to clip your wings so you can't fly" (stupid cupid)
"I am in love and it's a crying shame"
And I know that you're the one to blame …"
Almost everyone in the Hall was in hysterics now, and the girls had tears of
mirth running down their faces. Soon enough, the boys finished their singing
and jumped down at once as pink and red confetti came down from the ceiling,
which, incidentally, was pink. Then, as the background music faded, something
went horribly wrong. It looked as though somebody else had planned a prank for
that night …
Suddenly, Snape began to shiver all over, and burst into red and orange
feathers, whilst still having the pink robes stuck on him. Crying out in pain,
he fell to the floor, writhing and twisting around until McGonagall stood up,
extremely angry. Her knuckles where white, and her
face was so red she could barely speak.
"You lot. Dumbledore's office. Now."
The girls and the Marauders all stood and began to leave. The student body was
no longer laughing – the situation had become serious so quickly. McGonagall
turned to Malfoy and Avery.
"Take Mr. Snape up to the hospital wing now, please."
~*~
How awful, Lily reflected as she and her two friends made the familiar path to Dumbledore's office. They had been there many times before, but it had always been for small pranks, not serious like the one that had just gone horribly wrong. Lily knew how disastrous the effects of having two opposing spells cast at once could be, and the image of Severus Snape writhing around on the floor whilst the remainder of the school stood and laughed was not one that was going to evaporate any time soon. Sure, he deserved a little pranking, but to be in pain was another thing. What an odd c incidence that the Marauders had tried to pull a prank on the same person at the same time, Lily thought. However, the Marauders reaction to Snape in pain was very different to that of the girls'. Behind Lily, the very same group were giving each other high fives.
"Way to go guys, that was great!"
"Yeah, I was worried there but it turned out even better than what we
expected!"
"Did you see the LOOK on his face!"
The girls all rolled their eyes; none of them liked the Marauders attitude to
life, and that was just plain mean. Hayley soon got sick of their boasting and
wheeled around to tell them so.
"You know, Snape got hurt in that incident," she snapped.
"Yeah, but that's what made it even better," sniggered James. Lily's blood
began to boil once again.
Lily tired to keep walking and ignore the voices of the
Marauders behind her, and couldn't wait until they reached Dumbledore's office.
Fortunately for her, James wasn't stupid enough to pick a fight under the nose
of the Headmaster. In fact, James Potter was quite smart, which lead to Lily's
even greater dislike of him (that doesn't make sense, but I think you get what
I mean … )
When they finally reached the stone gargoyle, Lily realized that Dumbledore
must have come back if she were going to be sent to his office. Cool she
thought, and made a mental note to speak to him about Hayley's mother's death
and the strange man. They called out, and named a couple of random candies, but
nobody responded. The girls did get a kick, though, when James rapped on the
head of the stone gargoyle, which didn't seem to be very happy about having
someone hit it repeatedly on it's heat. As a result,
the gargoyle sprang to life and proceeded to try and bite James from its
position in front of the door.
They named some more candies, but after a while were stumped, and all slid to
the floor. Finally, James said
"Well, if no-one comes within the next five minutes, I'm leaving,"
For one of the rare times in her life, Lily couldn't find an argument to that,
so she settled with leaning against the wall and observing the Marauders with
distaste. They were already discussing plans for their next prank concerning
Snape.
"Maybe we could .. uh .. glue him to his bed or something so he can't get out …"
squeaked Peter.
"Nope," replied Sirius. "We did that in third year," replied Sirius.
They mused for about twenty seconds. It was quite funny, watching them all,
brows furrowed, trying to think.
"I know!" exclaimed James. Lily sat up a little straighter, secretly interested
as to what he was planning to do.
"We could turn his owl into like … a carpet python or something …"
The other Marauders began to laugh, but stopped and drew breath when the gargoyles
sprang to life once more, moving to admit them.
"Wonder why Dumbledore would choose a password like 'carpet python'," mused
Michelle, but when they all reached the top of the spiral staircase, it was not
Dumbledore that greeted them, but the Head Of
Slytherin, complete with bathrobe and green goo all
over his face. He didn't look happy.
The Marauders and the girls all froze in shock at the sight
of the Head of Slytherin and potions master, Professor Baldy, standing in front
of them with curlers in his long orange hair. Why was he of all people
standing in bathrobe with girly stuff all over his face? (A/N: no, it has
nothing to do with a polyjuice potion!) It looked extremely odd and quite
comical.
Professor Baldy had been the Deputy Headmaster of Hogwarts for quite some time,
and hated the Marauders with a passion. The female fifth year population of
Gryffindor weren't exactly his favorite students, either. A smile spread over
Lily's face as she remembered the time when she, Hayley, Michelle and Bridget,
another girl in their dorm had vanished Baldy's curly orange hair and goatee.
From then on, all of the Gryffindors called him Professor BALD –y. It took him six days to recover his vanished hair as
Peeves, the school poltergeist, had felt obliged to zoom around all week
with Baldy's vanished hair, cackling madly all he while. Lily was jolted out of
her reverie when Baldy snarled
"What are you lot doing here?"
"Where here to see Professor Dumbledore, Professor Bald-y, sir. Why
are you here?" James replied quickly, much to Lily's annoyance.
"Well, I'm sorry Potter, but the Headmaster is not here," Baldy sneered, not
sounding very sorry at all "He's away on business,"
"What kind of business, Professor Bald-y?" snickered Sirius.
"Business that's personal, Black. Meaning that it
doesn't concern you," Deciding he'd rather not continue the conversation, he
said
""Detention for all of you. In the library. Two o'clock. Tomorrow,"
"But it's not term time yet!" burst Hayley. "You can't –"
"Oh, but I can," Baldy grinned, making him look like a tortured koala. "I am
the acting Headmaster, and I can do whatever I like. While I'm at it, 20 points
from Gryffindor,"
"But-"
"Say another word and it'll be 50," he replied. "Now get out of my office. Now. "
"Let's just hope Dumbledore gets back soon," whispered Michelle into Lily's
ear. "If he doesn't, we're in deep kitty litter,"
~*~
~*~
Later that night, or rather, early the next morning, Lily, Hayley and Michelle
tried their best to creep quietly down the corridors of the west wing of
Hogwarts, "tried" being the operative word in the situation. Needless to say,
they weren't having very much success. Having previously placed chameleon
charms on each other, they were now stumbling along in the darkness with
cauldrons, potion ingredients and one hell of a heavy book. Even though they
couldn't be seen by the human eye, this didn't prevent them from making as much
noise as humanly possible. Unintentionally, of course.
The reason why they were staggering along in the dead of the night was that all
three were planning to complete and test their Animagi potions. They had
previously been able to brew it in their dormitory, but they no longer felt
safe in there, as it was custom for a teacher of student leader to come in to
check that the room was reasonably neat. The girls felt, with reason, that this would take more than just a few minutes,
and it would be a bit hard to shove all of the stuff they were carrying under a
bed when someone knocked on the door if they were in their Animagi forms.
There was, of course, no guarantee that this would work, and Michelle
especially had serious doubts about their luck lately. Lily and Hayley snuck
out to meet up; Hayley's mother died. They pull a prank on Snape; he almost
died as well. Not happy, Jan. Not happy at all.
The girls kept stumbling along, looking around aimlessly for
a place in which they could brew the potion and hopefully transform.
When they finally reached the end of the corridor (at least, that's what they
thought – no girl really knew if she was still with the other two, she had to
guess by the noises they made) they almost did of fright. Not literally,
though. Hayley, the graceful one of the group, tripped over the hem of her
robes and fell headlong into a seemingly empty suit of armor, which fell to the
stone floor with an exceedingly loud clatter, Immediately,
all three girls froze.
Nothing happened.
No sounds of footsteps echoing on the floor.
Nothing.
After what seemed like an eternity, Hayley spoke, making Lily and Michelle
jump.
"Well, this has to be the most deserted place in the castle if Miss. Norris
hasn't found us by now,"
"Haven't you heard, she's Mrs. Norris now," smirked Lily. "She's having
kittens,"
Michelle and Hayley both snickered.
"With who? It's not like there are many other cats
here,"
"How would I know? It's not like I was watching or anything, you know…
let's find a room to dump our stuff; I don't really care where we go anymore … "
(A/N: My friend and I were on our geography excursion today and we saw dragonflies mating. Freaky, I tell you, wasn't it, starborn? Anyway …)
"How about we go in here?" Lily said after a while, pointing to a door.
"What door? I can't see anything but a wall," said Michelle, who by this time
was tired and confused; not a good combination.
"No, see?" Lily said striding up to a wooden door she saw right at the end of
the corridor.
"Nooo …" Hayley and Michelle said in unison.
Lily sighed and pushed the door open.
"Oh yeah…"
"I see it now … wonder why we couldn't before…"
Once they entered this mystery room though, they discovered exactly why it was
hidden from most people.
The room was bursting with all sorts of costumes; masks, wigs, makeup, which
was pretty cool in itself, but the amazing thing was the portraits on the wall.
They we all of beautiful men and women, who had been talking
avidly, but froze, lifeless in their frames, as Lily entered the room.
"Uh, hi?" she ventured.
The people in the portraits didn't move.
"Uh … we came in here by accident and…" he trailed off, but the subjects in the
portraits stayed solitary.
The girls just shrugged and began to set up their potions, not bothering to
think about the possible danger of being in this mysterious room alone.
~*~
"Okay guys, we only have one more bit," yawned Michelle,
many potions ingredients later.
"It's by far the hardest, but that's besides the
point. I'll read the instructions to you," The other two girls nodded as their
respective potions simmered.
"The final step to creating an Animagi potion is to add a small pinch of
fairy dust whilst stirring the potion with a wand at a moderate speed, first
clockwise and then counter- clockwise for five minutes exactly. Then add a hair
of the person planning to become Animagi and drink immediately. If the potion
is successful, the brewer will turn into the Animagi that best suits their
personality. This will happen immediately, but afterward the brewer will be
able to turn into their animal at will. If the brewer is Metamorphmagus, not
completely human or is abnormal in any other way then this potion is not
recommended … blah blah blah," Michelle finished, looking up. "If either of
you are vampires, now would be a good time to speak up,"
"Nope, sorry to disappoint," grinned Lily.
"I vote we do it one at a time," spoke up Hayley. "That way if something goes
wrong then only one of us is stuffed,"
"Three guesses for who doesn't want to go first," giggled Michelle, while Lily
rolled her eyes.
"Pick me! Pick me!" yelled Hayley, a little more loudly than what was needed.
"I wanna go first!"
"Let's do it then, and hope it doesn't go wrong," said Michelle.
"Yeah, we don't want to end up in between our human and Animagi forms like a
centaur!" giggled Hayley.
"And then they had to go and breed," muttered Lily under her breath, causing
the other two to burst into fits of laughter.
"Okay, Hails, let's go,"
After what seemed like ages of brewing and mixing, all three
finally had their potions ready. It was way past their usual bedtime, and
although on a high from finally finishing the potion, were
quickly becoming tired. Sure, they were out late at nights many times, both as a group or with respective boyfriends, but never
this long, and hey - what were classes for? Sleeping in, of course! So, in the
very early hours of the morning, Hayley finally got to try her potion first.
She added a hair after tugging one out of her long, blonde plait, and looked
doubtfully for a second at the neon green potion before taking a swig from her
beaker and downing the lot.
"Mmm," she said. "Tastes like - "
But Lily and Michelle would have to wait a bit longer to find out exactly what
it tasted like, because Hayley, standing before them, began to rapidly shrink
and turn into a ...
monkey?
"Typical!" burst out Lily, while Michelle just giggled. "It
would be so typical for you to be a monkey. Honestly."
But apparently, Hayley was more than your average monkey. Hayley/Monkey began
to perform cartwheels, handstands and back flips, all the while glittering.
"Wow ..." whispered Michelle. "She's a magical monkey
..."
After showing off a bit more, Hayley returned to her human form, slightly breathless.
"Well," she said jubilantly. "What does THAT say about my
personality?"
After being bombarded with questions like "does it hurt?" "is it fun?" and "what did that potion taste
like?" Hayley just grinned, enjoying being the all knowing one for once.
"Come on! Tell us!"
"No, hell yes, and strawberries."
Michelle was next, and after taking a brown hair and dropping it into her
potion (also neon green) she turned into a ...
Flamingo?
Yes, that's right. A bright pink flamingo. But again, Michelle had transformed successfully into a magical creature. Either that, or all fluro pink flamingos did the can-can.
After a little while of showing off while Lily and Hayley applauded, Michelle transformed back to herself, grinning.
"Wow, guys, that went really well. But they're not exactly the animal forms we planned, because a glittering monkey and a neon pink flamingo aren't going to go unnoticed out at night in the Forbidden Forest like we'd planned,"
"What's neon?" asked Hayley.
"Muggle thing," said Michelle and Lily together.
"Ah, well," continued Lily confidently. "We'll be able to find a way around that. My turn!"
"Hold your horses," interjected Shelly. "I'm still not sure whether turning into a magical creature is natural or not." She began to flip through the pages of the book, and just as Lily was about ready to take her potion regardless, Michelle revealed that the book didn't actually say whether or not the animal forms should be magical or otherwise. Lily and Hayley shrugged, and Michelle plopped down on the floor next to Hayley to watch the show of Lily transforming. All their anxiousness had disappeared by now; Lily was easily as smart as the other two, and if any of them had done the potion incorrectly, it wouldn't have been her.
Lily added her hair and downed the potion. Her body went down on all fours and she lengthened, eventually turning into a sleek, smooth …
Panther.
At least she wasn't pink. She was in fact, truly a creature of the night, barely visible unless you were looking straight at her. She seemed normal enough from her friends' perspective, her black coat was sleek and very healthy. Then Panther/Lily looked up.
On the other two girls, their markings (like the monkey had bright orange toenails that Hayley had painted during the train ride to school) had been little things. On Lily's Animagi form, however, it was evident. She had bright green, sparkling eyes. Lily had unusual eyes in her human form, but they were nowhere near as bright and definitely didn't stand out as much as when she was a panther. She looked really cool, however, and tackled Hayley from where she was sitting.
Soon, with a pop, she turned back, and Hayley and Michelle stared at her in shock.
"Shit," whispered Hayley. "This wasn't supposed to happen."
Lily wasn't splinched or a half-panther, half-human, she looked fully like her old self, except for one thing. And that one thing stood out a lot.
Her hair was no longer red. It was black, as black as a panther's, and was a whole lot shorter than what it used to be, only going down to her shoulder blades.
"What?" Lily asked suspiciously, not sure she wanted to know. What if she'd really stuffed up? Suddenly, the idea of becoming Animagi for pure fun didn't seem so crash-hot after all.
"Look at your hair, Lils," said Michelle, fearing her reaction.
Lily muttered a long string of profanity, whilst grabbing her wand and using about twenty different charms in quick succession to return it back to it's normal red. Nothing worked. Michelle immediately reverted back to the textbook, whilst Hayley just asked
"How the hell did that happen?"
"I dunno," said Lily, quickly panicking about something that really wasn't that big of a problem. Come on, it was hair, something she normally didn't give a damn about.
"I was thinking about how nice having black hair as a panther was, I turn back and now look at it!"
"Lils, calm down," said Michelle, not looking much better herself. "You're getting hysteric,"
"I can't help it! How am I gonna explain this away?"
Groaning in frustration, she wished feverently for it to return to its normal auburn colour. And guess what? It worked.
"Oh my God Lils! How did you get that back?"
"The rouge charm?"
"No," spoke a voice behind them. All three immediately whipped round to face the speaker, fearing they had been caught. Underage Animagi were almost certainly illegal, and getting caught could result in expulsion from Hogwarts.
"You're a Metamorphmagus," said one of the portraits. In fact, they were all moving now, mumbling to themselves, saying things none of the girls could hear. The aforementioned girls let out a sigh of relief; it was pretty safe to say they weren't going to be ratted on. Lily didn't believe the woman in the portrait, however.
"No I'm not. I can't be. You have to be born with the skill,"
"You changed your hair color at will," another witch spoke from the painting next to the one they had been looking at. "You can only do that if you're a Metamorphmagus. No charm could have fixed your hair if it was the result of an Animagi transformation. An illegal one at that." The witch looked sternly at them over her horn-rimmed glasses. The girls blushed and looked away under her gaze.
Lily realized how lucky she was then not to have something worse happened to her. After all, Metamorphmagus' weren't supposed to be Animagi; but she had made it through alright. But surely, she would have known by now if she really were a Metamorphmagus, wouldn't she? Then she thought back to the time before she got her very first Hogwarts letter …
Her hair had gotten "magically" cut overnight when Lily wanted a trim but her mother wouldn't let her bet one … the disgusting pink nail polish that Petunia had forced on Lily when she was five had turned into black … All this she had put down to being magical once she got her letter; never once did she think she could change her appearance at will … the potion must have triggered something inside her that showed that she was, in fact one of the rare Metamorphmagi in the world.
All smile began to curve on Lily's lips. This could be a whole lot of fun, she thought.
They all stayed with the personalities in the portraits for some time, and found out why Lily had seen the door when others had not.
"It's like the Leaky Cauldron," explained the witch that had first told Lily about her new talent, who, once got started, couldn't be shut up. "Only magicals see it. All the things in this room are props, for things you can't change, like clothes. It's why we couldn't move when you came in. We weren't sure if you were Metamorphmagus or not,"
Lily kept talking to the portraits, but after a while, Hayley and Michelle, who weren't as interested, dozed off. Before they knew it, the magical alarm on Hayley's watch sounded, yelling "YOU'RE LATE FOR BREAKFAST!"
They had had little or, in Lily's case, no sleep at all, so they grabbed some toast, got changed and made it just on time to History of Magic. Not that it really mattered; it wasn't like Binns ever noticed now he was dead.
Laying their heads down on the desk, Binns' montonous drone was similar to that of a lullaby, giving Lily and Michelle time to think about the already dim events of the night (or morning) before.
Michelle was very confused; if a person's Animagi form reflected their personality, then why the hell was she a pink flamingo?
Lily was having similar thoughts.
Panthers are cunning and quick on their feet. I'm not cunning!
Meanwhile, the Marauder's were standing behind Binns, drawing caricatures of the teachers of Hogwarts on the blackboard while the Professor gave his (boring) lecture.
I swear, one day he's going to notice them, and Potter's sure gonna get it thought Lily as she drifted off to sleep.
~*~
Meanings of Animagi forms will eventually be revealed! Contrary to my friends' belief, they DO have meanings!
Author thankyous:
VoldemortsIllegitimateChild – Heh. I enjoy writing funny things; it cracks me up. Thanks for reviewing!
EbonyQuill – Yeah, I know. But what's a plot without twists? Hope you enjoy this chapter!
ZombieGurl98 – Thanks! And thanks for reviewing both of my stories ;)
Chocolate Taco – Thanks!
poetbrit – For just about the *checks* third time in my life, I didn't end the chapter with a cliffie! Go me! Thanks for reviewing!
ArtC-Fox – Thanks! I hope you liked this chapter as much as the last two!
That's all for now!
If you want to be emailed when I update this story, tell me in your review or email me at snowflakelatte@hotmail.com and I'll do so. Please specify whether you want to be alerted when I update both my stories of just this one.
Tata!
snowflakey