© Ariana Veelagrace and Clara Maplewood, year 2000-2001
The Lily Series
Chapter 4
Lily, her mind still spinning from everything that had happened so far that night, nodded. "I promise."
He smiled wearily. "Thanks. Now let's go – I'm guessing you want to get Sorted."
"How did you know I'm a first year?"
"You're, uh…you're not exactly tall." Seeing her bristle at this, he changed tack very quickly. "Anyway, most everyone knows to stay away from the Whomping Willow. They planted that to guard the secret passage, so nobody would find me."
They walked in silence, the boy leading Lily out of the creaky old house and back into the tunnel. To Lily's surprise, he paid no heed whatsoever to the jagged scrape on his cheek, except to casually press his shirtsleeve up against it every so often to check if it was still bleeding. He started talking again as they entered the tunnel. "Er…if you don't mind me asking, how exactly did you end up down there?"
She ducked a root hanging from the tunnel's ceiling. "Kind of a long story."
"I like long stories – they give me something to think about between full moons."
Once again, Lily was troubled by the unnatural seriousness of this boy. "Okay…well, I guess it started when these two girls stole some candy from a few fourth-years, and they – the girls, I mean – came into my compartment on the train to hide from them. Then we got off the train and the boys were running after us, because they figured I was in on it, too, right? And we weren't really looking where we were going, so we ran right into a giant, and-"
"D'you mean Hagrid? He couldn't be a giant. Giants are supposed to be huge. Half-giant, maybe, but I don't reckon Dumbledore would've hired a half-giant." He sighed. "Then again, he let me come to Hogwarts, didn't he? Sorry…go ahead with the story."
She smiled sympathetically, but his back was to her, so he didn't see. "That's all right. Anyway, he put us into one of the boats and said that if we ever needed help or anything, to ask him."
This time he actually turned around and grinned. "Definitely Hagrid, then. He said the same thing to me when I was a first year. By the way, I'm Remus Lupin, and I guess I owe you one for keeping this whole werewolf thing a secret. Two, if you count the fact that I just tried to kill you." His smile remained, but the gravity returned to his affect.
"I – it doesn't matter. I'm Lily, Lily Evans."
"Ok, then, Lily Lily Evans." Remus took on the expression of Nicky calling her 'Lily Something.' "Sorry about interrupting your story so much. Go on."
So she explained about the squid, the forest, the monkey-like things (which he figured were some kind of land-dwelling Grindylow), and her encounter with the Willow, stopping only once as Remus hoisted himself out of the tunnel and froze the tree by pressing a knot, as he explained to her later.
When they walked into the entrance hall, she immediately heard Remus mumble, "Uh-oh."
"What?"
"McGonagall."
"What's that?"
A terribly menacing middle-aged woman stalked towards them with a much younger woman beside her. The younger woman wore an oversized matron's uniform and immediately looked up confusedly at the martinet beside her, whispering a little loudly, "Which one's the werewolf?"
"The boy, Poppy, the boy." She looked at Remus with a slightly softened expression. "Mr. Lupin, I'm afraid you weren't here to get the news – Madam Pitcher retired over the summer. Her daughter, Madam Pomfrey has taken over her position, and I've every confidence that she will fulfill her duties just as well." Lily couldn't help but wonder if this was entirely true, as McGonagall's voice faltered a bit when she said it. "Thank you for bringing Miss Evans back. Now, off to the hospital wing with you."
Remus gave Lily a quick wave before being led away by the fascinated new nurse, who was peppering him with wide-eyed questions about lycanthropy. They hadn't even faded from earshot when McGonagall shot a stern look at Lily. "Now, I don't have to tell you that you caused a bit of mass hysteria. I imagine almost everyone in this school knows your name by now, Ms. Evans. We had teachers scouring the grounds, and Hagrid's probably still crashing about the edges of the Forbidden Forest right now. Your friends were positively distraught, and most likely still are. Do you understand the repercussions of your actions?"
"I'm sorry. The squid tipped our boat over, I'm sorry."
"You can be as sorry as you like, but it won't change the fact that…" McGonagall's eyes flicked down to see the wound on Lily's leg, and the color drained from her face. "Did he…he didn't…"
"No! No, he didn't bite me. It was just his claws."
The stern woman seemed to relax just a bit. "You've clearly been through a good deal tonight. Normally, I would severely penalize such foolishness, but it's not my place to deal out punishment – you haven't been Sorted yet, have you?" Without waiting for an answer, she muttered a quick spell that healed the cut, and stalked off with Lily in tow.
The Professor led her into a large but empty room with four long, bare tables and one stool sitting on a dais at the front of it. On the stool was a ratty, patched, threadbare old hat that somehow gave off an air of majesty in its antiquity. Maybe it wasn't beautiful in spite of its being old, Lily thought to herself, but beautiful because of its being old.
McGonagall lifted up the hat. "Sit," she instructed Lily before lowering the hat onto her head. As the brim slipped down past Lily's eyes, a small voice began to speak in her ear.
"Hmm...let's see what we've got here. Clever, very clever. Terribly loyal, though. Even a bit frightened that you won't get in with your friends, I see? Sounding more and more like a Hufflepuff every second, my dear. But my goodness, it's not every day you come across a girl who would peek into a room with a werewolf inside it, not to mention put up such a fight against that werewolf – ah, and befriend him once he was back in human form. If I'm not mistaken, Godric Gryffindor himself did something strikingly similar…or was that Helga Hufflepuff? Ah, well, you are dedicated to your friends. And they were both Gryffindor. As such, I will give you the benefit of the doubt…GRYFFINDOR!"
Once it yelled Gryffindor, Lily pulled the hat off as if she had just discovered there were burning coals in it. She jumped off the stool with very shaky legs and stopped on her way out the door to look back at McGonagall. "Where do I go now?"
"Er…walk out those doors and up the staircase to the right. You'll come to three doors that keep snickering and changing shape. Don't go through those, but make sure you pretend you find them funny, or they won't let you go. To the left of them is another staircase with a silver banister. Go up those stairs, and – oh, wait, that one's taken to sealing itself off every first of the month, hasn't it? Forget all I said. Go to the staircase on the left when you walk out of here, and ask it politely to please bring you to the Lion's Den. It will adjust accordingly, and spit you out right in front of a statue of an eagle if you go right up it. The eagle statue has practically no significance except that its head is always facing whichever passage is right to go down that day – it's impossible to keep track of. Once you are in the correct hallway, go right, then left, then right twice, then left three times, and left again after passing a right and a left but not taking them. You'll reach a portrait of a fat lady in a pink silk dress. The password's 'Icklesickle.' And, oh, incidentally, if you come across a singing suit of armor, don't talk to it – it's a bit drunk." She gathered up the hat and the stool and began walking out a side exit. "I would normally walk you back there, but I'm a bit frightened for poor Mr. Lupin; Madam Pomfrey isn't, shall we say, the most competent nurse we've ever had, and I feel it's my duty as head of Gryffindor House to make sure my students aren't being terrorized by empty-headed matrons. I'm sure you'll find your way just fine, Ms. Evans."
Quite dazedly, Lily made her way out the door, attempting to remember the directions even as she took every wrong turn possible.