Chapter 14: Lily's Outburst

After Lily, Alice and Amelia had finished catching Frank up on the schoolwork he had missed, the four of them began working on their Transfiguration homework. Lily was flipping through her text, trying to find an illustration of the proper wand movement for transfiguring a feather into a feather duster when the Marauders minus Lupin came barreling into the common room, breathing heavily, their faces flushed, and eyes dancing with delight. Lily scowled and shook her head, wondering what they had been up to this time. It appeared that Andomeda had the same thought, because she went striding over to where they were leaning against the wall, trying to catch their breath. "What have the three of you been doing?" she demanded.

On cue, the expression on all three of their faces turned from delight to innocence. "I'm hurt, Andromeda!" Black began, but she cut him off.

"Don't give me the 'I'm hurt' line, Sirius. I've known you a little too long to buy it. And I know you well enough to recognize when you've been up to something. Why were you three running like the Bloody Baron was after you?" The boys all exchanged glances, but kept their faces determinedly straight.

"We have no idea what you're talking about, Andy," Potter said. Black and Pettigrew nodded quickly.

"We were simply having a race to see who was the fastest," Black added.

"Potter won," Pettigrew piped in.

Andromeda looked as though she'd like nothing better than to give the three of them detention for whatever it was they had done, but as she was unable to find any proof that they had been causing trouble, she settled for a glare. "You boys had better watch yourselves," she said finally, turning and walking away. The three boys immediately burst into laughter as she went.

"You boys had better watch yourselves," Black said in a perfect imitation of Andromeda that sent Pettigrew into gales of laughter. Black glanced at him in bemusement. "I remember when she used to be fun." Pettigrew finally stopped giggling and wiped the tears from his eyes.

"Andromeda used to be fun?" Potter asked, with a sideways glance at Pettigrew. This started Pettigrew howling all over again.

Potter glanced over and caught Lily looking at them. His smile widened, and she quickly looked back at her book, trying to ignore them.

Potter headed over to sit beside Kaylie and Desdamona, and Lily noticed in annoyance that Kaylie immediately started giggling and batting her eyelashes. "Honestly!" Lily thought, "You'd think she's never met a boy before, the way she carries on." She tried to go back to reading, but kept getting distracted by the laughter and noise coming out of the corner where the three boys, Kaylie and Desdamona were sitting.

After she had read the same sentence six times, she'd finally had enough. "Oi, you five!" she hollered, lowering her book and glaring at them. "You want to keep it down? Some of us have homework to do."

Potter turned and grinned at her. "What's the matter, Evans? Transfiguration still not going well for you?"

Lily's glare turned positively icy. "You know, every time I think you might be decent, Potter, you go and prove otherwise," she said in calm, measured tones.

"Oh for Merlin's sake, Evans!" Potter called out, glowering. "It's called a sense of humor. Try using it."

The entire Gryffindor common room had gone quiet and was now watching the exchange. Lily was preparing to retort when Andromeda interrupted. "Knock it off, you two," she said. "Or I will give you both detention. As you pointed out yourself, Lily, people are trying to study." Lily blushed, but Potter continued to glare at her.

"Sorry," Lily mumbled, sitting back down and trying to ignore the looks of shock that Amelia and Alice were giving her.

Potter looked like he wanted to say something, but as Andromeda had now turned her gaze on him, he sat back down. Lily scowled again as she heard Kaylie let out a trill of giggling. "It was obvious it was a joke, Jamesy," she said in a sickeningly sweet voice. For pity's sake! He wasn't THAT cute. She started. What was she thinking? He wasn't cute at all!

Her thoughts were interrupted by Alice. "What in the world was that outburst about, Lily?" she asked.

"Nothing," she said, opening her book. "I'm just sick and tired of him giving me a hard time about Transfiguration."

"Well that's all good and fine, Lily," Amelia said in concern. "But you blew up at him before anyone said anything about Transfiguration. They weren't making that much noise!"


"If you ask me," Frank said, grinning a little, "I think Lily makes it a point just to yell at Potter on principle. It's not the first time she's yelled at him for no real reason."

"I don't yell at him for no reason!" she said furiously.

Alice gave Frank a contemplative look. "Do you know, you're right Frank?" she said, ignoring Lily. "That's definitely not the first time. Although I thought the two of you were getting on better since Christmas?"

Lily was still seething. "He is an arrogant git, and I will never get along with him, are we clear? It's just that he was there when I overheard Malfoy talking about Frank's dad, and—," Lily clapped her hands over her mouth in horror as she realized what she'd just said.

Frank looked stunned. "My—my dad?" he asked. "What do you know about my dad, Lily?"

Lily felt the anger flooding out of her, and looked helplessly between Alice and Amelia. They were both watching Frank. Alice moved her hand to his shoulder. "I think maybe you ought to tell him," she said quietly.

Lily looked at Amelia, who nodded. "Okay," she said with a sigh.

Lily proceeded to quietly relate to Frank what she had heard on the train about his Dad. "So it's true, then. What my Mum suspects?" he said in disbelief after she had finished.

They all nodded sadly. "Looks like it," Alice answered.

Frank looked at them, and they could see tears welling up in his eyes. "I've got to…ummm…," He trailed off and stood up.

"Frank," Amelia said, but he waved his hand at her. "I need to be alone," he said, walking towards the portrait hole.

Alice looked at Lily and Amelia as Frank disappeared. "I'm going after him. In this state, he might try to find Malfoy and hex the truth out of him. You two stay here. No reason for all three of us to get in trouble for being out of bounds at this hour."

Lily and Amelia protested, but Alice held up a hand. "I really don't have time to argue with you two right now. Please, stay here. The last thing I need is to worry about the two of you, too."

Lily and Amelia nodded silently. "Good," she said. "I'll be back."

Alice went over to where the boys were sitting. She said something to Potter, and he spoke to Pettigrew, who jumped up and ran toward the boys' dormitory. When he returned, he was carrying a bag that Lily was nearly certain contained Potter's invisibility to cloak. Alice grabbed it, and headed out the portrait after Frank.

"Think we should have let her go alone?" Lily asked quietly.

Amelia shrugged. "Dunno. But I don't think we were going to convince her to let us come with. You know how stubborn Alice can be."

Lily nodded. "Right then," she said. "I suppose we'd better get back to our homework."

Amelia agreed, but they were both too distracted with worry about Frank and Alice. After they'd tried to work for half an hour and gotten nowhere, they gave up. Amelia challenged Lily to a game of chess, and they spent the next several hours playing quietly. The common room slowly emptied around them, until only the two of them and the three Marauders remained.

Just as Amelia was beating Lily for the second time, the portrait hole burst open as it had earlier, but for a moment, it looked as though no one was there. Then, Frank's head appeared, and he looked around, terrified. "It's….Alice…," he panted. They all jumped to their feet, quickly getting over their surprise.

"What? What happened?" Lily and Amelia demanded as one.

"They've…outside…" he said.

"No time to talk," Potter said, running toward the portrait hole. "Just show us!"

Frank nodded, and they followed him quickly into the hall.  He headed toward the stairs that led to the entrance hall. "Wait," Potter called, glancing at Black. "Where are we going?"

"Outside!" Frank panted. "They've got her down by the lake."

Black nodded at Potter. "Follow us," he said, and they turned abruptly and headed toward the suit of armor that was standing opposite the portrait of the fat lady on the landing. Amelia glanced at Lily in curiosity, but she shrugged. She had no idea what they were doing.

"You're wasting time!" Frank called. "They're hurting her!"

"This is faster," Potter assured him.

Black began muttering something to the armor, which stepped aside, revealing an opening in the ground. "Everyone jump in!" he said, disappearing.

Lily glanced apprehensively at Potter, but he was now urging them forward. "Come on! You're wasting time. This is the quickest way out to the lake!"

Deciding that time was far too precious to debate, she sat down on the edge, and felt what appeared to be a very narrow slide at her feet. She shoved off, and began to slide, twisting and turning in total darkness. Her elbows kept bumping against the wall, slowing her down and scraping them painfully before she could finally tuck them in closely at her sides. A couple of times she felt something brush in her hair, and shrieked. As she continued to slide, she could hear Black's laughter ahead of her, and Amelia's screams behind her. Finally, she saw a bit of moonlight at the end of the passage, and landed with a thud on the soft snow. Black reached out a hand and pulled her out of the way, which was lucky, because a few seconds later, Amelia came shooting out onto the snow. Lily turned to look at the base of the slide, and was amazed to find that it appeared to be the mouth of a Gargoyle carved into the side of the castle. It occurred to her to wonder briefly how they'd discovered that passage, but before she could ask, Pettigrew had shot out, followed closely by Frank and Potter. They headed toward the lake, Frank in the lead.

The moon was full, and shone brightly on the blanket of snow which had covered Hogwarts since December. The brightness proved to be a double-edged sword. It was very easy for them to spot Alice and her captors, but it also meant that it was going to be very difficult indeed to creep up on them, unnoticed. As they approached, they could hear laughter, along with Alice's voice, which sounded terrified. They paused in the shelter of a tree, and Lily could see three figures off to the right of them, forming a circle. "First thing's first. Who are we facing? Who's got Alice?" Potter asked quickly.

Frank's voice trembled as he answered. "Bellatrix, LeStrange and Snape," he said quietly. The three Marauders fairly growled as Frank answered. "Alice had come to find me, but I told her that I really needed some time by myself, and to get back upstairs before she got into trouble. She left, but left this cloak with me—," and for the first time, Lily realized that Frank had the invisibility cloak with him, "so I didn't get into trouble when I came back, and as I was coming inside, I saw them by the lake, and Alice was…screaming, and…I hope she's okay.  I should never have left her."

Potter put his hand on Frank's arm.  "You did the right thing, Frank.  You couldn't have helped her by yourself."

Black nodded. "Okay, so there are only three of them. The four of us should be able to take them without a problem, but they know more hexes than we do, particularly Snape, so we've got to surprise them. Is anyone here besides Sirius and I experienced in dueling?" Lily and Amelia shook their heads, but Frank nodded yes. Pettigrew half nodded and half shook his head no.

"I know what you and Sirius have taught me," he squeaked.

Potter nodded. "Okay, here's what we're going to do, then. Sirius, you take Amelia and circle around to the other side, follow the trail that leads right down to the shore. Crawl along the shore, and come up to the left of where they are right now, right across from us. The embankment there is steep, so it should hide you from view until we're ready to attack. Do you have your mirror?" Black nodded. "Good, I'll call you when we're in place." Black turned and headed down towards the embankment, motioning for Amelia to follow him. They began to walk quietly toward the shore, taking care to stay within the shadows of the trees.

Potter watched them for a moment, and then turned back to Lily, Pettigrew and Frank. "Lily, you stay with me. We're going to go after them from this side. Frank and Peter, we need you to create a diversion, draw them off to the left, toward where we'll be waiting. We don't want Alice getting caught in the crossfire. She's already bad off from the sounds of it." Lily winced at this, and he paused to look at her, and then squeezed her shoulder. "She's going to be all right," he said reassuringly before turning back to Pettigrew and Frank. "You two will need to use my cloak so that you can get up real close to them."

Pettigrew's face looked pale, but he followed Frank under the cloak and disappeared. Two sets of footsteps appeared in the snow trailing away from Lily and Potter. That was no good, Lily thought, suddenly panicked. The Slytherins were bound to notice that, and it'd lead them straight to her and Potter. "Frank, Peter, just a second" she whispered frantically. "Come here."

The footsteps doubled back and stopped just in front of her. "Take off the cloak for a minute." Frank and Peter appeared in front of her again, and she pointed her wand at Frank's shoes. "Caelum Adambulo," Lily said, swishing her wand in a wide arc, and then repeating the process with Pettigrew. "There, that should keep you from making footprints in the snow."

Potter stared at her in astonishment. "I learned it when I was looking through all of those ancient charm texts," Lily explained. "You'd better get going, you two. Sirius and Amelia are probably in position by now." Lily said another charm that wiped the snow clean of their old footprints, and she noted in satisfaction that no more appeared as they walked away.

Potter stared after Frank and Pettigrew and shook his head. "Bloody brilliant," he said, before turning back to her. "Right. Once Frank and Pete draw Bellatrix, LeStrange and Snape away from Alice, Pete, Sirius, Frank and I will surround them. I want you to go to Alice and get her out of here. If she's okay, then take her back up to Gryffindor, and try to avoid the main hall so you don't get caught. If she's not, then you and Amelia will need to get her up to the hospital wing. Do not, under either circumstance, wait around to make sure that the four of us are okay, all right? You and Amelia don't have any dueling experience, and Alice won't be in any state to help us fight. The last thing any of us needs is all three of you hurt. Just get her out of here at the earliest opportunity. Do you understand?"

Lily nodded, slightly irritated by the way that he was bossing her around, but too relieved that they were going to get Alice to safety to say anything. "Good." He reached into his robes and pulled out the same mirror he'd used the night they'd had detention. "Sirius," he said, and once again Sirius's head appeared. "Here's what we're going to do." As he was explaining the plan to Sirius, Lily noticed that Bellatrix, Snape and LeStrange had stopped laughing, and were now creeping toward the trees off to the left. They had left Alice where they had been standing, and Lily had to stifle a scream as she realized that Alice was lying there, motionless.

"Looks like Peter and Frank have distracted them," she said thickly to Potter, who looked up.

"Ready, Sirius?" he asked. She heard Sirius bark yes. "Okay, on three. One, two, three!" Lily took off toward where Alice was laying, and saw Amelia charging up the bank toward Alice from the opposite direction. She caught a brief glimpse of the four boys encircling Bellatrix, LeStrange and Snape, but her attention was soon focused entirely on Alice. She was bleeding from several different cuts on her face, her robes were torn, and she was curled up into a ball on the ground. Lily dropped to her knees and called out, "Alice? Alice? Are you awake?"

No answer came, so Amelia tried talking to her. "Alice? We need to get you back up to the hospital. If you can help us, please tell us. Can you stand up?" The only answer was a low moan. Amelia glanced at Lily. "We have to get her upstairs," she said quickly.

Lily looked around. The two of them couldn't very well carry her by themselves. Oh! Why hadn't they learned how to conjure things yet? A stretcher would come in handy. "Do you have any ideas how to get her out of here?" she asked.

Amelia's face screwed up in thought. "I think if we both did wingarium leviosa it would be powerful enough to levitate her, and we might be able to float her upstairs."

Lily clapped her hands together. "Great idea. On three, then. One, two, three. WINGARDIUM LEVIOSA!" they said, and Alice floated slowly off the ground. Lily glanced over her shoulder toward the fight that was going on between the Gryffindors and the Slytherins, and saw two figures huddled on the ground, but she couldn't discern who they were. Part of her wanted to go help the boys out, but she remembered Potter telling her that it was up to her and Amelia to get Alice to safety. "Concentrate on the spell," Lily said, making up her mind. She would do as Potter had suggested, and get Alice to Madam Pomphrey. She and Amelia each grabbed onto Alice's robes with their free hands, taking care to keep their wands pointed at her. "We need to get her out of here, now!" she said, not looking back as they headed toward the castle, Alice floating along behind them.