Hope you guys got heaps of chrissie pressies… heres mine…
NEW ENEMIES
"Lils…wake up!" Lily opened her eyes and saw Drew over her, shaking her awake. She looked at the clock on her bedside table.
"Drew, its 6am!" Lily said groggily, rubbing her eyes.
"I know…but it's the Gryffindor quidditch practice, and you said that you will come and watch."
Lily wracked her brains. Don't remember promising anything, she thought to herself
"I don't remember promising anything, Drew." She repeated her thoughts to her friend.
"Doesn't matter. its their first full practice. im going, and I don't want to walk down there by myself. Please!!"
So that was why Lily found herself hugging onto her robes, shivering as she walked down to the quidditch pitch with Drew on a cold Sunday morning..
"So, what you did last night, it was really good." Drew said to Lily as they walked out of the school.
"Yeah, well, I had karate lessons when I was young."
"What's Karate?" Drew asked her blankly.
"It's a muggle self defence thing."
"oic, well, you have to teach me someday."
Lily looked away embarrassingly. "Sure. NO problem. Just…uh…remind me."
They had reached the quidditch pitch and Lily saw flashes of yellow and red in the sky. She spotted James, Sirius, Remus and Myall with 3 other boys. Sirius was defending on one end, awaiting an attempt at the goal by Myall. She scored with ease.
"Good going, Myall!" cried James on the other end.
"So who plays what?"
"Well," Drew began, "James, Remus and Myall are Chasers. Sirius is the keeper. That boy over there," pointing to another boy, "Frank Longbottom and a 4th year called Patrick Brown are the beaters and another 4th year called Kristoff Wiseman is the seeker. James is the captain."
Lily watched the seven of them practice. Whatever Myall couldn't measure up in size, she made up for in speed and just pure talent. She outshone both the boys when it came to shooting at the goals, and could do so from any angle or direction. Sirius was unfortunate enough to only save very few, and those that he could save was plunged straight into his stomach, causing his to cry in pain.
"She's really good." Lily commented in awe. Drew smiled.
"She has been Gryffindor's secret weapon for the past few years. many of the teams don't expect her to be so good. They often ignore her because she is a girl, and she ends up scoring the most goals."
Sirius spotted the two girls at the stand.
"Hey there pretty ladies, thanks for coming to wa…OOOF… for heavens sake, Myall, that bloody hurt like shit! Don't aim so hard!"
"If I don't aim hard, how am I supposed to score a goal you stupid git!"
"Sirius! Pay attention." James called out to his keeper. Sirius clutched his stomach, grumbled, and resumed the game.
After another hour, the team stopped playing and retreated to the change rooms to shower. Both Lily and Drew waited for them outside the change rooms. They could hear Sirius and Myall arguing.
"I wont be surprised if ALL my organs are flat!" they could hear Sirius whinge
"Well, that's not my problem is it! If it wasn't flat, then that means you are doing a crap job."
"But you don't have to throw so hard!"
"Oh sorry, Black, I'll put out a warning to all chasers from other houses…Don't throw too hard to your goal post, because our Gryffindor keeper just wont be able to handle the pain that comes with it."
The rest of the team laughed. Soon they joined the two girls outside and made their way to breakfast. Remus and Drew were talking animatedly, Sirius and Myall, despite the argument before, were holding hands. That left James and Lily walking together. It was quiet for a while, no one spoke.
"So…er…hows your hand?" Lily asked James, not wanting to look him in the eye. James stared back at her.
"Its ok, better."
"That's great."
"Lily…"
"Yeah?"
"Sorry, for everything I said and did…it was wrong…I prejudged you for no reason."
"Sokay…" Lily muttered under her breath. Another silence ensued.
"I still like what you did to Malfoy though. Beats our pranks anytime."
Lily laughed. Upon hearing the word prank, Sirius turned around.
"Hey Prongs, we need to…uh…discuss…the…uh…transfiguration essay before we head to breakfast. You too, Moony. It would help if we find Peter too."
"Transfiguration essay?" Drew said, eyeing Remus suspiciously. Even Myall was looking at Sirius with a curious smile on her face.
"Yeah…" Remus said with a guilty look on his face. "We'll see you girls at breakfast." With that, all three boys trudged away from the girls
"You know what that means…" Myall said disgustedly, "Prank fest on Slytherins."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Where exactly are we going to plan this…and we don't have time to go back to the common room…or find Peter."
"I think its time we pay our good friend Barto a visit" Sirius said with a smug look on his face.
They rounded the corner of the 4th corridor and came face to face with the portrait
"Bartholomew Somerset"
The portrait door opened and the three boys stepped in.
"Boy," Remus said, looking around. "We haven't been here for ages…not since Filch found us here. Do you remember that?"
"Yeah," James added. "We were trying to mix the dungbombs with the filibusters to see if we could let off smelly fireworks, when he and the stupid cat Mr. Norris heard the fireworks going off."
"But really…we shouldn't have let it off…you know it would have attracted attention."
"That would have been Padfoot's fault, Remus."
Sirius snickered. "Oh well, it was fun… at least we know it works. Filch smelt like crap with his clothes all torn up."
Remus looked at Sirius worriedly.
"You don't think we will get caught again here, will we?"
"Nah, don't worry," Sirius said, dismissing his friends concerned look. "He wont come back and look here again. I mean the bastard earned us a whole months worth of detention last time. he should be happy from that." Then he added: "Come on, lets get started…"
Sirius and Remus dug into their bag and settled down on the floor. James was going to join then when he caught sight of the book on the table.
"Look, guys, this wasn't here before." James picked it up and it began to glow. He dropped it in fright.
"D…d…d…did you guys see that?" He asked his friends, stammering at the same time. Sirius and Remus were already practicing their prank ("Ok, I will say the charm, and you move aside so that only slytherins will get the full blast of it").
James picked it up again. It began to glow again…and the book magically flicked to the centerfold. james backed away in shocked.
"Guys…I think you should see this…" stuttered James, turning around and glancing at Sirius and Remus. His friends turned around and starred at James. James walked over to them and dragged them over.
"im telling you, this book opened and..." He stopped. The book had closed back, as if it hadn't previously glowed, or that James had even picked it up.
"You brought us over here because of some book…?" Sirius asked astonishedly.
"Whats wrong with you?" Remus said, placing his hand on James' forehead as if checking for temperature. James brushed his hand away angrily.
"I know what I saw!" James cried irritably.
Both his friends shook their heads and walked back towards their corner.
"Make yourself useful, Prongs and get over here…lets make some real magic."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"How was your transfiguration essay?" Myall asked Sirius with a wry smile.
"Excellent, going very well…" Sirius muttered before stuffing a large spoonful of cereal into his mouth.
"That's great, Sirius." Natalie said. "So what exactly did you say about the issues of transfiguring muggles?" Sirius thought for a while, with his friends watching him intently.
"Simple," Sirius said shrewdly, while Remus banged his head onto the table and the girls burst into giggles. "I thought it is an immoral thing to do. Remus, James and myself were discussing its effects on the psychology of muggles should they witness such a transformation."
"Padfoot, you idiot…"Remus said, leaning over to his friend. "The transfiguration essay was on the history of animal transfigurations. Nat had you fooled."
"Yeah…" Drew said between laughs. "Look forward to seeing your essay, Black." Then the girls started laughing again. Lily was clutching her side when she noticed James repetitively bathing his cereal with milk. She was about to say something, when Natalie beat her to it.
"James, are you ok?" she asked, putting her hand on his shoulder. James let go of his spoon at looked at Natalie.
"Umm…yeah, just thinking."
"Should we be worried?" Drew asked teasingly.
"Prongs is probably thinking about what happened while we were…uh…"
"Planning your prank?" Myall said, smiling. The girls laughed.
"What happened?" Natalie said with concern.
"We were in some room…and according to Prongs…this book…" Remus began.
But he was interrupted by Sirius jabbing him hard on the shoulder.
"Explain later, the prank is about to begin."
All eyes, including James', turned to the Slytherin table. Seeing James' enthusiasm, Natalie squeezed his hand and said earnestly: "Ok, Prongs, talk me through your prank"
James perked up.
"We are going to make each Slytherin 6th year guy into a girl, and each girl into a guy. So if you were a guy, you would grow boobs, and have a girly voice, and vice versa for the girls. we learnt it from some advanced transfiguration book."
And so they watched as Malfoy and friends went through a weird transformation. It took about 10 minutes for the transformation, although the full impact of the prank was absorbed by the entire school for much longer than that.
Everyone laughed. Everyone except Lily. Her face grew apprehensive and concerned.
"Don't expect them to just sit on their laurels after that." She muttered under her breath, starring at the Slytherin's reactions in the aftermath of the prank.
"Excuse me?" Sirius said, overhearing her.
"I said…"
"I heard what you said, but you don't have to worry honey. They wouldn't have the guts or the brains to pay back the Marauders."
"When you are full of anger, there is no telling what you will do. And there will come a time where they have suffered one too many humiliations."
"Lily, you are talking to the Marauders." Drew said, passing the pancakes to James. "They can take care of themselves."
"Still, you cant expect to do all this…and not expect them to retaliate. Its human nature."
"Yeah…but as Drew said," James piped in with an fuming tone. "We can take whatever they throw at us…anything."
"Anything? What if it was you? What if you were sitting on that table, enduring all that humiliation and embarrassment that you inflicted on them after all these years. Whatever that they will eventually throw at you will be much, much more than just one silly prank."
By now, Sirius was shaking his head at Lily's indifferent views, Remus and Drew were looking at each other nervously and Natalie was glaring at Lily. James, however, was steadfast in getting his point across.
"Look, Evans, we may not be as aggressive in our defensive approach as you do, i.e.: throw them across the room, but I assure you, we can take care of ourselves. We are big boys. But we are grateful for your concern."
"I am not conce…" Lily began, raising her voice.
"Look, we have to go soon…" Myall interrupting the makings of a major argument, "lots of work to do…" She took Lily's hand and dragged her out while Sirius did the same thing for James.
Yet this didn't take away the worried look on Lily's face. Or the menacing gaze that Malfoy was throwing towards them. Both knew that a war between the two houses was inevitable.
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next chapter: Quidditch match between Gryffindor and Slytherin
Have a happy holidays and a new year. Love yas, Myall