Chapter 4: Regarding Blood



Lily awoke very early the next morning, not feeling much more rested than she had before she'd fallen asleep. She had slept fitfully at best, her sleep interrupted by dreams of flying, and falling. In the dream that had awoken her this time, she had been plummeting toward the earth and screaming for someone to catch her. She had seen Potter standing below her, pointing and laughing, and when she had yelled at him to help her, he had called back, "I can't, you picked death, remember?" She tried to clear her mind of the dream, reminding herself that if she wasn't comfortable on a broomstick, she would not be asked to fly any higher than a few feet off the ground anyway. The thought didn't calm her completely, but she still felt better as she walked down into the common room to wait for her roommates before going to breakfast. Lily pulled out her potions textbook (999 Magical Herbs and Fungi) and started leafing through it. She heard a voice call out, "Hey, Lily!" and looked up to see Lupin standing there, looking pale and even more sick than he had the previous night.

After she looked around to make sure that none of his friends was with him, she patted the chair beside her. "Sit down," she said, concern clearly evident in her voice. He looked exhausted, but unsure whether he would find it rude if she inquired how he was feeling, she decided not to say anything about his appearance. "Err—who won the chess game last night?" she asked

He sank into the chair next to hers gratefully, and smiled. "I did," he said with a touch of pride. "Sirius is a little too rash to do well at the game of chess. He'd do much better if he were patient; you know, use a strategy, rather than coming after all of my pieces straight away, wand blasting."

"I didn't know you had to use your wand to play," Lily said in confusion. She certainly didn't recall seeing any flashes of light coming from their direction last night.

Lupin looked confused at first, and then he laughed. "It's an expression, Lily," he said. "You must be a muggle-born."

"I am," she said, feeling suddenly defensive for some reason. "What's wrong with that?" she asked, as a few students began to trickle into the common room and out of the portrait, on their way to breakfast.

Lupin sighed wearily. "You really might try relaxing a bit, Lily. I'm not James," he said in amusement. "And you might find that he's not so hard to get along with, either, if you learn to relax around him, too."

"You're assuming that I want to get along with him," she snapped, now irritated that Lupin was defending him. He ought to be apologizing for the things Potter said to me, she thought furiously to herself, "And I don't see him trying so hard to get along with me!" she added, thinking about how Potter had singled her out yesterday.

"Fair point," Lupin added, but before he could say anything else Alice and Amelia came bounding down the stairs, Kaylie and Desdamona behind them.

"There you are, Lily!" Amelia called, before noticing who was sitting beside her. "Oh, hi Remus," she said with a blush.

"Remus?" Kaylie asked, peering around Amelia and catching sight of Lupin sitting there. She grinned at Lily. "Fraternizing with the enemy, then?"

Lily laughed. "As Lupin here has just pointed out, he is not Potter, and therefore not 'the enemy'. Though I don't think I would classify Potter as the enemy, anyway. I don't care enough about him to give him that sort of status." She put her book into her backpack and stood up.

"He'll be very disappointed indeed to hear that," Lupin said, looking at her oddly, but before she could ask him what he meant, she noticed Potter, Black and Pettigrew coming down the staircase.

"See you in class," Lily said, and eager to avoid a confrontation with Potter again this morning, she hurried out of the portrait hole after the other girls.

The girls found their way down to the great hall, only getting lost once on the way. At Lily's urging, they sat down at the far end of the table, away from the other students. The table gradually filled up around them, and Lily noticed happily that Potter was sitting down toward the middle of the table, away from them. While they were eating, a flurry of hoots and flapping wings announced the arrival of the morning post, and Lily looked up in awe, as she had done yesterday. While much of her transition to the wizarding world had come naturally, she thought again that it was going to take her awhile to get used to the way some things were done there.

A tawny barn owl swooped down toward Alice, and landed softly on her shoulder with a hoot. "Everyone, meet Archimedes. He's the family post owl," Alice said with a grin before removing the letter that was tied to his leg. She fed Archimedes some bacon rinds and he flew off, hooting happily.

As Alice was preparing to open her letter, a commotion in the middle of the table caught their attention. Potter, Lupin and Pettigrew had jumped up and were laughing as Black gingerly held up a bright red envelope. "Looks like Black's got a howler," Amelia whispered to Lily and Kaylie, who were staring at the boys in bewilderment.

"Might as well open it up," Frank Longbottom was saying to Black. "It'll just be worse if you don't. Mum sent me one at my Gran's once."

Black nodded, and began opening it just as it began to smoke. As Lily watched, the letter jumped out of Black's hand and began shouting. "SIRIUS BLACK! I AM COMPLETELY DISGUSTED! HOW COULD YOU DO THIS TO OUR FAMILY? THE SHAME! AS IF IT WASN'T BAD ENOUGH THAT ANDROMEDA IS IN GRYFFINDOR, YOU HAVE TO FOLLOW IN HER FOOTSTEPS. YOUR FATHER IS SO UPSET THAT HE'S HAD TO TAKE THE DAY OFF OF WORK. I NEVER THOUGHT I'D SEE A SON OF MY MINE IN GRYFFINDOR HOUSE. WHERE IS YOUR FAMILY PRIDE? DOES YOUR BLOOD MEAN NOTHING TO YOU?" The letter then burned up and fell back to the table, the voice of what Lily could only assume to be Black's mother still ringing in the stunned silence in the hall.

Black was still sitting at the table, his head in his hands. "I'm surprised she didn't call me a traitor to all purebloods," he said, grimacing at his three friends, who were still standing up, watching him. The noise level in the hall was slowly going back to normal, so Lily was unable to hear how Potter had responded as he, Lupin and Pettigrew quickly sat back down. Kaylie and Desdamona got up to go talk to Black, as Lily turned her attention back to her meal, troubled. This was the second time in as many days that Lily had heard a reference to the importance of blood, but before she had the chance to ask what in the world Black had been talking about, she noticed Alice was staring at her letter, her face pale and her hands trembling.

"Alice, what's the matter," Amelia was asking in concern.

"My letter, it's from my Grandpa," she said quietly. "Here, take a look." Amelia and Lily hesitantly took the letter Alice was holding out and began to read.

Alice—

Don't let your mum and dad know I've written you about this, they'd have my hide, but you know my opinion's always been that it's better to have you scared and prepared than caught unaware. There has been a murder. I'm nearly certain that it is linked to the disappearance of the Ministry of Magic Officials earlier this year, but I've got no proof of it. I've enclosed a clipping from the Daily Prophet for you.

I know that your folks don't want me to scare you, Alice, but I'm telling you that there is a Dark Wizard working out there, operating covertly right now. And until we know just how powerful he is, and what his intentions are, you can't be too careful.

I love you,
Grandpa Parker

Lily looked up from the letter in shock. "There's been a murder now?" she asked, her voice shaking. Alice held out the article from the Daily Prophet. "Here, take a look at this."

Lily took the article, then gasped as she stared at the horrifying picture above the headline, "Famous Retired Auror Found Dead in His Home". Sparkling at her in black and white was the image of a hideous skull with a snake coming out of its mouth. The picture was captioned, "This mark was found hovering above the home where the body of retired auror William Kingsley was found, and is believed to be the signature of the witch or wizard that killed him." Lily read the article quickly, and then looked up to find Alice and Amelia staring at each other, fear clearly evident in their eyes. Not sure what to say, Lily looked up at the staff table, and noticed McGonagall and Dumbledore chatting fervently, the Daily Prophet hovering in front of them. Lily looked again at the article and a sentence she had missed in her haste to read it caught her eye.

"What do they mean, 'it is not known whether Kingsley was targeted because of his muggle heritage'?" Lily asked. Neither Amelia nor Alice answered her, so she went on, "And what was Black talking about when he said 'pureblood', what does that mean? Alice? Amelia?"

Amelia sighed, and then looked at Alice, as if hoping she was going to answer for her. Alice continued to stare pointedly at the table, so Amelia reluctantly began explaining. "Well you see, the thing is, Lily, some wizards—not most—but enough to make trouble, believe that being pure-blood, that is, being born from a long line of wizards, makes you better than witches and wizards that are muggle-born, like yourself, or that are half-bloods, like Alice here."

Lily gasped, unable to stop herself. "That's horrible!" she said angrily.

"Yes, it is. But that doesn't make it any less real. There's a long history of that way of thinking, going back at least as far as Salazar Slytherin," Alice said, "the founder of Slytherin house," she explained as Lily looked at her blankly. "Anyway, every time there's a muggleborn murdered, they always have to suspect that blood-hatred may have motivated it."

Lily suddenly became aware that the Slytherin table was chanting, "Traitor, traitor" in Black's general direction. "And most Slytherins, you'll find, subscribe to their founder's way of thinking," Amelia added, with a look of disgust toward the Slytherin table. Lily followed Amelia's gaze, and saw that a teacher she didn't recognize was striding quickly over to them. The chanting died out, but the Slytherins were still glaring threateningly at Black.

Lily nodded in understanding. "So that's why Snape was looking at you with disdain when he mentioned that he knew your family."

"I told you what his father thinks of my dad," Alice said, shrugging.

"But why does Black hate the Slytherins so much then?" Lily asked. "It sounds like his whole family has been in that house—well, besides Andromeda."

"For the same reason you or I do, I suppose," Amelia said. "It's disgusting and wrong. Just because his family is like that doesn't mean that he can't be a better person than them. I wonder what his dear old mum thinks about him running around with James Potter, though" she added, almost as an afterthought.

"Why would she care?" Lily asked. "He said his dad taught him to fly and his mum was seeing him off on the train—"

"How do you know that?" Alice asked with interest.

"I noticed him on the platform," Lily said defensively. "His mum was yelling at him about knicking his father's snitch. Anyway," she said, trying to get back to her question, "so he can't be a muggle-born. That should please Black's mum."

"No, Lily," Amelia said, shaking her head. "In order to please the 'pure-bloods are better' crowd, the wizarding in your family has to go back a thousand years or more. Potter's blood would be considered the same as Alice's, because his mum's a muggle-born."

"And Black's mum, if the rumors are accurate, would certainly not consider Potter to be a worthy friend for her son," Alice said thoughtfully, "Which tells you a lot about Black's character. I was talking to Lupin the night of the sorting, and he told me that Sirius and James have been friends for ages." The bell rang to signal the end of breakfast, and Lily suddenly remembered that their first lesson this morning was flying. She felt the butterflies began to swarm through her stomach again.

"Ready to go fall off of our brooms?" Amelia asked with a grin.

Lily tried to ignore the butterflies now swarming through her stomach. "As I'll ever be, I suppose," she said with a grimace. The three girls got up and walked quickly out of the great hall, through the huge entrance doors, and down the smooth stone steps toward the quidditch pitch.

To her immense relief, Lily did not fall off of her broom in flying lessons. Potter hadn't been lying, either, when he'd said that flying was more natural to him than walking. Madam Alipes, an energetic older witch with short white hair, had even asked Potter to demonstrate the proper kick-off technique, and had awarded Gryffindor 10 points when he'd done it correctly. Alice, Amelia and Desdamona, who had all had at least some flying experience, had gone swooping around the quidditch field, playing tag with Longbottom, Lupin, Potter and Black. For her part, Lily considered the class a success because unlike Pettigrew and most of the Hufflepuffs, with whom they were having class, both Lily and Kaylie had been able to move beyond hovering, and had advanced to some basic maneuvering exercises before the class period had ended. Still, she found that she was quite relieved when class was over. She got an unpleasant feeling in her stomach every time she took off, and also discovered that she possessed an apparently long-dormant fear of heights that had given her some trouble every time she got over ten feet or so above the ground. Now that she was safely on the ground and walking back to the school for Defense Against the Dark Arts, however, Lily's dreams of last night seemed very silly to her, so she decided to share them with her friends. She had just gotten to the part about James telling her that he couldn't help her when she heard an amused voice behind her call out, "You were dreaming about me last night, Evans?" Lily froze, not wanting to believe her ears. She turned around slowly and saw Potter standing there, hair messier than usual because of flying, and wearing the arrogant smile that she was coming to detest. "I'm flattered, Evans. I really am."

"Hasn't your mother ever taught you not to eavesdrop," she spat at him, unable to think of anything else to say.

Potter shrugged. "She might have," he said, "I probably wasn't paying attention. So tell me—did you kiss me?"

Black and Pettigrew laughed, but Lupin looked at her with an expression of what might have been sympathy. Lily stood gaping at him, unable to think of anything to say. "That was in your dreams, not hers, Potter!" Alice snapped. "Come on Lily, let's go!"

"Is that right, James?" Lily heard Lupin ask Potter as Alice grabbed Lily's hand and started pulling her toward the entrance hall. The sound of Black's laughter followed them inside.

Lily was able to ignore Potter in Defense Against the Dark Arts, but the class itself had turned out to be a disappointment. The subject was taught by the Slytherin Head of House ("I'll never understand that teaching appointment," Alice had commented), and as it turned out, they were paired with the Slytherins for that class as well. Professor Amos had shown considerable favoritism to his students from the first (awarding Snape 5 points for Slytherin simply for having his parchment and quill ready when he arrived) and to make matters worse, they were told that the first couple of weeks would be spent on theory, and that they wouldn't actually be practicing any spells for about three weeks. As a result, Lily, Alice and Amelia were already decidedly short-tempered when they got downstairs for lunch, and discovered that news of the murder had spread around the school. Alice's sister Anna, who had also gotten a letter from their Grandpa, actually came over and sat with them, along with Frank Longbottom, and Desdamona's brother Iago. Amelia's brother Edgar had even stopped by on his way over to the Hufflepuff table to speak with her about it. Nobody really knew what to make of it, but all of them agreed that it was a very bad sign that the killer had left a mark. As Edgar had put it, "That means he wants us to remember him."

"Which means," Frank had added with a shudder, "he's planning to do it again."

The mood was very somber as Lily, Alice and Amelia headed to Gryffindor Tower after lunch. The first years had the afternoon off, as they had astronomy with Professor Sinistra that night at 10:00, and they were all looking forward to getting back to the common room and relaxing for awhile. When they had reached the third floor, they discovered Sirius Black, by himself for once, arguing with a dark-haired girl that Lily vaguely recognized as having been sorted into Slytherin.

"You're an embarrassment to the family name, Sirius," she was saying. "I thought it was bad enough that you insisted upon running around with that half-blood, Potter," she said with contempt, "but now you're in Gryffindor, and you don't even have sense enough to be ashamed about it!"

At this, Sirius pulled out his wand, "You can say anything that you want to about my house, Bellatrix, but if you ever say anything against James again," he didn't finish the threat, but moved toward her, his eyes narrowed in fury. The girl that Black had called Bellatrix backed away, but she continued to sneer at him. At that moment, the two cousins noticed that Alice, Lily and Amelia were watching them, and they turned to look at them.

"What's this Sirius?" she asked, her voice mocking. "Your fan club? Let's see, a pure-blood who is also a traitor to the name wizard, a half-blood whose father is an embarrassment, and a mud-blood. This is who you're—" but she didn't have the opportunity to finish her sentence. Alice pulled out her wand and shouted "rictusempra". A flash flew from her wand, and the next thing Lily knew, Bellatrix was doubled over, wheezing. "If you ever say anything about my father, or either of these two again," she said, her eyes flashing with anger, "I will make you pay for it, Bellatrix."

Black looked at Alice in amazement, but Bellatrix, still doubled over by whatever curse Alice had hit her with, simply glared. "Come on," Alice said, motioning toward Lily and Amelia, who were also staring at her, dumbfounded. The three girls and Black hurried up the stairwell, leaving Bellatrix gasping for breath behind them.

"Will she be okay?" Lily asked hesitantly, a little concerned that they should maybe take her to the hospital wing.

"She'll be fine," Black said, glaring behind him, "No more than she deserved, anyway." By this time, the three girls and Black had reached the portrait. "Aprasio," Black snapped.

The fat lady looked offended, "Well you needn't say it with such attitude," she huffed before swinging open to admit them. They climbed into the common room, which was deserted at the moment.

"It's disgusting, how anyone can think that they're better than anyone else just because of who their parents are," Black said, throwing his books down on to a table. "Please don't judge the entire Black family by that," he added, looking at the girls, an odd expression on his face. "Well, actually," he said, laughing humorlessly, "you can judge most of us by her, I'm afraid. But not Andromeda and I—we're not cut out of the same cloth. I can't believe she used that word, either—Lily, I'm sorry about her, she had no right to—"

But Lily cut him off. "You don't need to apologize for that," she said, feeling decidedly wrong-footed, "I don't even know what the word is, to be honest with you."

Alice, who had been pacing around the room, muttering things like, "she's lucky that's all she got this time" and "Next time I'll know a better curse" paused mid-mutter and stared at her, and Amelia looked extremely upset, but neither one seemed to want to explain it. "Well," Lily prompted, getting frustrated by her friends' lack of response. It was the same reluctance that she had encountered this morning at breakfast, and she was getting rather tired of it.

Black, however, showed no such reluctance to explain. "A mudblood," he spat out, still seething, "is a very foul and vulgar name for someone of muggle-parentage. Someone like you, Lily. It's meant as an insult, as if you aren't the same quality of witch as someone like her. She's got that much right at least," he said, laughing bitterly. "You're already a much better witch than she'll ever be, because you're a much better human being." With that, Black stormed off up the stairs, leaving the three girls staring at each other in amazement.

"She looked at me like I was filth," Lily said after a moment. The shock at what had happened was now wearing off, and Lily's eyes filled with tears against her will. Alice and Amelia, who had been staring at the boys staircase which Black had just stormed up, both hurried over to Lily and hugged her.

"She's the filth," Alice said firmly. "It's her problem, not yours, Lily. You can't let people like her get to you."

"People like who?" they heard Lupin's voice ask. Lily looked up in surprise, she had been so caught up in her thoughts that she hadn't even noticed Lupin, Potter and Pettigrew arrive in the common room, but they were now walking very quickly toward her.

"Bellatrix," Amelia explained as the boys came to a halt in front of them. Lily noticed that their smiles instantly disappeared at this information. Amelia turned back to Lily. "Alice is right. If you let people like her get to you, you might as well get back on the train home."

"What did she do to you?" Potter demanded, an edge to his voice that Lily had never heard before. "What did she say?"

Both girls turned back to Lily. "Lily—," Alice began, but she was interrupted by Potter.

"Well?" he asked, his expression unreadable, "What happened?" Alice looked at Amelia. Both seemed unsure whether or not to tell Potter, so Lily explained what had happened as calmly as she could, determined that she was not going to start crying in front of Potter.

When she got to the point in the story where Bellatrix had called her a mudblood, Potter looked at her with an expression of outrage, jumped up, and began pacing, re-tracing the route that Alice had been following a few minutes before. "Where's Black now?" he asked angrily. "She's his cousin, Lily. He'll take care of her for you." Lily was still so upset about what had happened that she didn't even notice that Potter had called her Lily for the first time. She had never encountered the kind of hatred that she had seen in Bellatrix's eyes before, let alone been the target of it, and she didn't know quite how she felt at the moment. She wrapped her arms around herself, and sat down in a chair, blinking back the tears. Alice and Amelia were now staring at her, concern evident in their faces. Potter opened his mouth again, as though to say something, but Lupin stopped him.

"What happened next?" he asked Lily, looking at her intently. Potter stopped pacing and sat down heavily beside Lupin again. Lily continued with the story. When she had finished, Potter looked at Alice with admiration in his eyes.

"Well done, Parker" he said to her with an attempt at a laugh. "Sirius was right, nothing more than she deserved."

Pettigrew looked confused, though. "What does she mean, 'mud-blood'?" he asked.

"We'll explain it to you later, Pete," Potter answered. He seemed to have calmed down once he realized that Bellatrix had at least been punished for what she had said. "And make sure that's the last time you use that word. It isn't fit to say, even when you aren't directing it at someone."

Lupin continued to watch Lily with an intensity that almost made her blush. "Alice and Amelia are right, Lily," Lupin said at last, smiling gently at her. "And Sirius too, while we're on it. You can't let people like her get to you. I wouldn't be here if I let what people say about my kind," he broke off abruptly as Potter, Alice and Amelia all turned abruptly to stare at him.

"What are you on about, Remus?" Potter asked him, clearly confused. "From what you told us last night, you're family line doesn't even have so much as a squib in it!"

Lupin looked suddenly uncomfortable. "I think we'd better go find Black," he said, standing up. "He'll need calming down before supper," and he began to walk toward the staircase leading to the boys' dorm.

Potter looked like he didn't want to let the subject drop, but as Pettigrew was already following Lupin out of the room, he seemed to realize he had no choice. "Will you guys take care of Evans?" he said. Lily felt momentarily annoyed that Potter had decided that it was his responsibility to assign someone to 'take care' of her (she was quite capable of taking care of herself, thank you very much, and she certainly didn't need him to tell her friends to take care of her, either!), but she decided to let it pass when she realized that nothing he had yet said to her had made her feel as terrible as she was feeling just then. Alice and Amelia nodded, and turned back to her as Potter followed Lupin and Pettigrew up the staircase.

Alice and Amelia eventually managed to cheer Lily up, and by the time they began to climb the north tower for their astronomy lesson, Potter and Black had reverted back to their usual selves as well. If anything, they were actually worse that evening than usual (Alice suspected that it was to make up for having been so nice to them that afternoon). Potter had teased her some more about the dream, and then one of the four had caused her telescope to go floating around the tower when they were supposed to be drawing out the positions of the constellations in the sky. She was nearly certain that either Potter or Black was responsible, but all four were laughing when she had looked over at them. The stunt had cost Gryffindor a round ten points, and also kept Lily from finishing the assignment during the class period. Her annoyance at Potter and Black for the extra homework she had ended up with overcame any feeling of awkwardness she might have had about what had happened earlier during the day, and by the time that she settled into bed that night (pushing aside the feeling of guilt that she still had yet to get a letter off to Petunia), she felt that things were quite back to normal.