Lily Chapter 19: Unpleasant Surprises, a harry potter fanfic

Lily

Chapter 19

A/N: I apologize. I apologize to everyone in advance. You'll see why.

Lily plopped herself down on her bed, giggling. Sirius was such a prankster! Sort of a problem child; it didn't pay to have him as a Charms partner. His "accidentally-on-purpose" overdone Cheering Charm had leveled Lily for the majority of her day and she was still giggling uncontrollably.

By the time she had calmed down and taken a few drinks of water, she heard the sounds of students climbing the dormitory steps. Chantel walked in. She didn't even bother to change into her nightclothes, she just hovered near her four-poster, looking almost frightened of it.

Lily tilted her head to one side, concerned at her friend's strange behavior. She swung her legs over the side of her bed and walked over. "Chantel?"

Chantel's head snapped around nervously, then she calmed down. "Oh, it's you, Lily."

"Yes, it's me...who else would be in our dormitory...oh, sorry." She watched Chantel's frightened green eyes sweep down to the floor, full of tears. Of course, who else would be? Chrissy, that's who. "Anyways," Lily began awkwardly, "You've been acting sort of strange lately...what's going on?"

"What? Strange? Why do you ask? I'm not strange, am I?"

"No, you're just...LOOK at yourself!" Lily dragged her by the arm over to a mirror. "Your hair is all frizzy, your eyes have got these dark shadows under them...what's the deal?"

"Nothing!" Chantel's voice took on a high, panicked note. "Nothing at -- Lily, he's in my dreams!"

Lily broke her hand away from her friend's arm. "Who? What do you mean, in your dreams?" she demanded.

Mascara dripped down her cheeks as tears began to flow. "Every time I close my eyes, Lily! Every single time, I see those eyes! Those horrible red eyes, and that voice! I can't see the other ones, just him, and the Muggles...the poor people!" She stopped and collapsed, sobbing, on Lily's shoulder.

Lily knew it wouldn't be right to say anything, lest she make Chantel feel worse. She just mouthed "oh, my god, oh, my god, oh, my god" over and over again. Chantel was dreaming about Voldemort...her father, that is...killing the Muggles. Why was this happening? "It'll be o.k...It'll be o.k..." Lily murmured soothingly, stroking her friend's hair. "let's get you down to the Hospital Wing."

"No! No, it's too lonely down there! I've got to stay here...in the dormitory..."

Lily guided her across the room. "You need rest," she said, firmly placing her down on the bed. "Get some sleep. See if it doesn't look better in the morning."

Chantel reluctantly laid down and closed her eyes, but she wasn't resting at all. Lily knew, late into the night she heard Chantel's ragged sobs coming from across the room.

The next morning, Chantel looked like she had been through a mosh pit and gotten trampled by breakdancers a few times. The mascara had caked onto her cheeks and given her a rather tribal look while her robes were rumpled from tossing and turning in them all night long. When she stood up and looked in the mirror, the resounding shriek woke Lily up, not to mention shattered part of the poor mirror. Lily leapt out of bed, unsettled by the previous night's conversation. "What? What's happening? What's wrong, Chantel?" She was all ready for another comforting episode where Chantel collapsed and had to be caught by her friend, but soon groaned and fell back on her bed when she heard the string of babble coming out of Chantel's mouth.

"Oh, my God! what happened? Why are my cheeks all black like this? Sirius is going to DIE laughing at me, and he'll get the whole Great Hall involved, and I'll be a TOTAL laughingstock and blahblahblah..." It went on and on and on, the self-concious banter mingling with Cleaning Charms. By the time she finished, Lily was already downstairs and eating breakfast in the Great Hall. Chantel hurried down, her face glowing, and sat next to Lily. "Well! Hello, everyone!"

Sirius's mouth dropped open, and he put his elbow in the maple syrup. "Oh...hi, Angel, I mean Chantel!"

James cast a disgusted glance over at his friend and just rolled his eyes. "I can only hope that I will never go that ga-ga."

Chantel was doing her share of ga-ga, too. "Nice to see you, S...Sih...uh...no matter, I know you're a Gryffindor and all that, and you're not Severus Snape."

Lily shrugged and started to dig into a stack of pancakes. "Good enough for me."

"Padfoot," came a stage whisper from the other side of the table. "Hey, padfoot..." Remus Lupin was making shoving motions with his hands, like, 'go on, go on!'

Sirius's eyes reflected panic as he wiped off his sticky elbow. "Uh, uh, uh...Chantel?"

"Uh, uh, uh...yes?" She mimicked his uncertainty.

"Would you...would you want to, I guess the question is...g...g..."

"Uh, uh, uh...yes!" She smiled at his relieved face.

"Great! First thing we do is set all the Slytherins' pants on fire at the next Quidditch match. Then we'll have the bleacher all to ourselves and we can just sit there and watch all the players fly around up above and...then we kiss, and...oh, gosh..." his face went the color of parchment as he revealed what he had been thinking about ever since he made
the decision to ask her. Milk spurted from Lily's and James's noses as they laughed their rear ends off.

"Gotta go!" Lily gasped, mopping up milk with her napkin and leaving for her first class. Chantel didn't even say good-bye, she was too busy gazing at Sirius with the proverbial ga-ga eyes. Lily turned back when she noticed that the second set of footsteps weren't coming. "I said, 'gotta go!'" Chantel was unmoved.

James looked at Lily and said, "Don't blame me for this!" He splashed Chantel's face with a glass of icy water, and she got up and followed Lily.

The day proceded normally, and everything went the same as any other day, except for the fact that Lily didn't have to suffer through Sirius's dreadful Charms that day; Chantel elbowed her out of the way when they were partnering up. She had to put up, however, with James, who was even worse than Sirius. As a matter of fact, they were practicing the
Banishing Charm, and Lily found herself on the other side of the room more than once during the class. It was almost time for the lesson to end, and she had been blown across the classroom yet again. James laughed and yelled, "Accio Lily!" She was swept to her feet and pulled back by invisible strings...too far...too far! Right into James's arms!

There was complete silence as both of them clenched their mouths tight...they did NOT want a repeat of what happened the past summer. Somehow, the tighter their mouths clenched, the tighter did their arms. Then James let go. "Sorry."

"Yeah."

That night, in the common room, Lily had a rather frightening experience. She was sitting on the couch, listening to Chantel gab about Sirius, when suddenly, blood gushed out of Chantel's chest. Lily gasped as the room turned the dark red color of blood. Everyone in it, James, Sirius, Remus, everyone...everyone but Peter. Only his right hand turned
the horrible shade, but then galvanized into silver as he advanced on Lily, laughing...laughing...so cruelly! He raised a dagger and Lily screamed, covering her head with her arms and screwing her eyes shut. When they opened again, the room was normally colored. Chantel was looking concernedly at her and inching backwards on the couch.

"You o.k, girl?"

Lily was trembling. She reached out and tried to feel the space just above Chantel's stomach, to make sure there wasn't the gaping hole there had been, but Chantel moved all the way to the other side of the couch. Lily looked around. Peter was sitting in the corner, a discontent lump, and his right hand was perfectly normal...no dagger clutched in it. Then she swept her gaze downward and looked at her own, shaking hands. "Fine," she mumbled. "I'm fine."

Lily lay awake in bed, thinking hard. She was too frightened to sleep, probably just as frightened as Chantel had been last night. She just kept hearing that cruel laugh and seeing the horrible, all-encompassing red...a tremor ran through her body just thinking about remembering it. Sleep...yes...that's what she needed. Lily turned over and faced the wall with her eyes closed, but on the inside of her eyelids was painted that picture of the silver hand clutching the long, dripping dagger. Fighting it, she tried to replace the image with that of James, but the gruesome combination resulted in a picture of James being stabbed with that dagger. She snapped her eyes open, rather watching the light dance on the wall than seeing a dagger plunge into James's heart. She felt a little odd thinking about James's heart, and chuckled nervously to herself before hearing the sound.

It sounded like a heavy person dragging a heavy flour sack across the floor. The sliiiide, thump, sliiiide, thump of the footsteps was eerie and disconcerting, especially after the image she had envisioned in the common room that evening. The irresistible trembling seized her body again, and liquid fear surged through her veins. The sound ceased and
a grunt was heard, followed by the sound of rapid thumping, like the flour sack was being rolled down a staircase.

Lily took a deep, shuddering breath and turned over slowly, making sure the springs made no sound as she grabbed her wand and pulled the curtains away. She stepped urgently, yet softly. What was going on? Why wasn't anyone else awake? Should she- her brain froze to a screeching halt in the middle of a question. Her foot had just touched something
wet on the ground...Lily bent down and laid her hand near her foot. In the silvery moonlight trickling in from the window, she saw that her fingerprints were filled in with a dark red color..."blood," she breathed frantically. Taking care to watch her steps, she followed the grisly trail down the steps. She flattened herself against the wall and hardly dared to peek into the common room. When she gritted her teeth and whipped her head around to look at the scene, the breath was stolen from her lips in fear.

There, in the center of the common room, stood a boy bending over the stretched-out body of a girl. Through her chest was a dagger and at least a dozen stab wounds. Blood was everywhere, just like in her vision. The boy was whispering as he pulled the dagger out and thrust it in again. "He never believes me...see if this'll be proof, oh, yes...I'm as loyal
as the next one...yes...yes...YES!" He whirled on Lily, a manic gleam in his eyes and an insane grin plastered across his features. "He thought I would desert him!" He advanced on her, dagger clutched spasmodically in his right hand. "But no! No, just her! You...he has plans, he does, oh, yes! For YOU!"

Lily backed up the stairs, hardly daring to believe what was before her. Chantel, lying dead...and at Peter's hands. His bloody hands! Her fingers went limp as her brain urged her to run, run! But her legs simply wouldn't obey.

Peter grabbed her around her waist and shoved her down the stairs. As she lay there, helpless, she saw the clouded-over green eyes of her friend, lying next to her. Tears wouldn't come. This was too much! Peter threw the dagger down carelessly, and it chopped a length of her hair off. He bent very, very low and whispered hoarsely to Lily: "You may know, but you'll never tell."

Then the world seemed to collapse around them.