Lily Chapter 38: Preparation, a harry potter fanfic

A/N: This is a test. This is only a test: font blue This is a test. This is only a test. Ok, thanks! :O)

Thanks to Ana for the idea of...well, I'm not saying what the idea is. You'll have to read it and find out for yourself, now won't you? :O)

Disclaimer: Wow, I'm long overdue for one of these, aren't I? All right, everything that belongs to J.K. is hers. Everything that belongs to me is mine. Did I cover everything? Ok, ok. For those of you who are sticklers about disclaimers, I own the plot, Juno, Eurydice, Amelia, and anything else you see in here that you haven't seen in the Harry Potter series. K?

Lily

Chapter 38

James, Lily, Sirius, Remus, and Peter were seated at the Gryffindor table, watching the Sorting.

"Abbot, Sarah!"
"Achy, Robert!"
"Berry, Orpheus!"
"Black, Amelia!"

The pudgy little girl jogged eagerly up to the stool and sat down....right on the hat. Under the general laughter in Great Hall, she muttered an apology to it and jammed it on her head. It took about five minutes before shouting, "GRYFFINDOR!"

Amidst the hefty applause, she made her way to a seat between Sirius and Peter. "I'm in Gryffindor! I'm in Gryffindor! It tried to put me in Hufflepuff, but I gave it a piece of my mind! 'Listen, you...hat!' I said. 'My brother's in Gryffindor, and he's going to be really, really sad if I'm not! So, you better put me in Gryffindor or I'll sit on you again!'"

All present held their stomachs in laughter through the sorting of "Bone, Lotus." "Sounds like you told HIM!" Lily giggled. "Poor hat's not going to be able to sleep at night, knowing that you're prowling the halls!"

Amelia threw an arm around her brother's shoulders. "Neither will the teachers...hehehe."

When the Sorting was finished, the feast was served. Lily noticed that Amelia was acting odd whenever Peter spoke to her.

"Amelia, could you pass the soup?"

"What?" Amelia jumped very slightly. "Oh....sure, Peter."

Sirius looked at his sister with concern. "What's up?"

"Nothing..." but she kept looking strangely at Peter.

Dumbledore stood up from his place at the High Table and cleared his throat. The hall fell silent. "Another term! Another wonderful ten months to fill your brains with things that you'll probably forget over the summer holiday! A new crop of students..." He smiled at all of the relieved-looking first years in the hall. "And a new school song! The Sorting Hat has composed a lovely bunch of lyrics for us, but we all feel that it should remain without a set melody. Pick your favorite song and sing along!" He conjured up a ribbon of words from the end of his wand, and complete musical chaos erupted as everyone in the Great Hall started singing the words to various melodies.

"Hogwarts, Hogwarts, Hoggy Warty Hogwarts,
Teach us something please,
Whether we be old and bald
Or young with scabby knees,
Our heads could do with filling
With some interesting stuff,
For now they're bare and full of air,
Dead flies and bits of fluff,
So teach us things worth knowing,
Bring back what we've forgot,
Just do your best, we'll do the rest,
And learn until our brains all rot."

Dumbledore beamed. "Very nice. I'm sure that the Sorting Hat is quite proud of you all." He cleared his throat and changed topics. "On another note, I'm sure you are all wondering about the situation regarding our new Prefects. Our correspondence department was rendered rather inoperational when Professor McGonagall caught a nasty summer flu, and therefore, I will be announcing the new Prefects now."

There was a general stir in the Great Hall. All of the now-fifth-years had simply thought that they hadn't been chosen as Prefects.

"For Slytherin: Narcissa Taylor and Severus Snape." Grudging applause bounced lamely off of the vaulted ceiling. "For Hufflepuff: Miriam Forsythe and Amos Diggory." Slightly louder applause came. Hufflepuffs, despite being slightly off-beat, were nice people. "For Ravenclaw: Eva Ingsa and Robert Marley." The same tepid but appreciative applause was heard. "And finally, for Gryffindor: Lily Evans and James Potter." A few Filibuster fireworks went off (Sirius's doing, of course), and very admiring applause ensued. However, the prankster in question said nothing. James took a quick glance at his friend, just to make sure that Sirius was making good on his promise, and he was sitting quietly, writing something on a piece of parchment. "Congratulations to all new Prefects. Please see Professor McGonagall - who, incidentally, has made a perfect recovery from her bout of flu - for your new House passwords."

That night, everyone was relaxing in the common room, and Amelia took Lily aside. "Do you think Peter's a little creepy?"

Involuntarily, Lily shook her head. "No. Why do you say that?"

"He just gives me a weird feeling in my stomach...but it's not good, you know?"

"You probably just ate too much at dinner. Don't worry about it," Lily said, not believing herself at all.

Amelia tried a small smile. "You're right. Okay, I guess I'll just go to bed now. Night."

"Lily? Wake up, Lily! Breakfast!" Juno was shaking her rather roughly from a sound sleep.

Lily turned over, not quite awake yet. "Five more minutes!"

Juno turned to Eurydice and sighed. "Let's get on with it." They circled around to the other side of her bed and heaved the end of the mattress upwards. With a thud, Lily was rolled from her sleeping position, sheets and all.

"Ow!" Lily sprang to her feet, instantly defensive. "What'd you do that for?"

Her two roommates were already awake and dressed. Juno spoke up. "You're not a morning person, Lil. I assume you slept in a lot over the summer holiday?"

Lily grumbled, rubbing sleep from her eyes. "Yeah...sure."

Eurydice laughed. She stepped in front of the half-conscious Lily and waved a hand in front of her face. "Hello? Anyone home?"

"Cut it out," Lily whined, brushing Eurydice's hand away. She picked up the tangle of her blankets huffily and plopped down on the floor with them. "I'm sleeping five more minutes, whether you like it or not."

"Suuuure. Well, I guess we'd better go. Better go meet Sirius and Peter and Remus and James." Juno put special emphasis on the last word, hoping that it would get Lily up out of her stupor. The extroverted girl frowned when all her bait caught was a distracted wave. "I said, JAMES." Still nothing. "What's with you?"

"Whaddya mean, what's with me? I said I was going to take five more minutes!"

Eurydice rolled her eyes. "Well, maybe Juno just thought-"

"I thought that you'd hop to if I mentioned him, but I guess I was wrong," Juno cut in. "Oh, well. See ya."

Incidentally, this DID make Lily 'hop to.' "Wait a second." She pulled herself up from the heap of blankets and crossed to the door. "What do you mean by that?"

Juno shrugged. "Well, you like him, don't you?"

"Not again!" Lily sighed with exasperation. "Listen. I have said this about ten thousand times. James. And. I. Are. Just. Friends. Got it?"

"Sure. Just friends. See you at breakfast." And they left the room, obviously not believing a word Lily had said.

Lily sighed again and shut the door behind them. How long was it going to take before people figured it out? There was nothing between her and James! Then, without warning, a phantom memory swooped down on her, changing her perspective for even those brief few moments.

When she had been dancing with Sirius, and they were spiraling across the floor (her toes becoming complete mincemeat), she had suddenly found herself in James's arms. They had stayed there, ignoring the music for just a minute. The feeling she had had...when she had felt her heart beating as one with James's...something about that feeling almost made her think that maybe...

She cut off that train of thought, angrily pulling her robes over her head. It was just the romantic side of her acting up. That feeling was a direct result of being in the wrong place at the wrong time...or was it the right place at the right time?

Amelia joined Lily in the common room. "Hi! Wanna walk down to breakfast with me? Isn't Hogwarts great? I'm so glad I'm in Gryffindor! If that hat had put me in Hufflepuff, I swear, I would've gotten right back on the train home! What do you think I should do first? Filibuster fireworks? Blow up a toilet? Send Mum a faucet? Shave Sirius's head again? I didn't like that song the hat made up, did you? I think it was kinda stupid, don't you? Well, it's got to be really really boring to be a hat. All you do is just sit there and...be a hat, right? I mean, there's not much at all to do except hang there on the hat rack and wait for someone to-"

"Oh, look!" Lily cut her off by pointing to a perfectly ordinary gargoyle of a lion. "Isn't that amazing?"

Amelia looked at the gargoyle, back at Lily, the gargoyle, Lily, the gargoyle, and Lily. "Are you okay? I heard of some kinda disease where people hallucinate or something and they think really weird stuff's happening when everything's ordinary, and it gets really weird sometimes. Am I talking too much? You'd tell me if I was, right?"

Not wanting to answer, Lily simply took her seat at the Gryffindor table. "Hello, everyone! Sirius, Amelia's so much like you it's not funny."

Sirius beamed and punched Amelia playfully on her puffy little shoulder. "Chip off the ol' block!"

"I'm gonna be the best prankster in this whole school!" Amelia obviously had it all planned out for herself. "I don't know what I'll do first! How did you start out, Sirius?"

"Well..." Sirius pursed his lips and leaned back in his chair like an old man reminiscing about his days in the military. "I suppose it all started when I was young and innocent like you. Just after I got my owl, I received many gifts."

Remus grabbed a tuft of Sirius's hair and pulled. "All right, cut to the chase."

"Hmmph!" Sirius rubbed his hair protectively. "Well! If you insist, I'll skip the introduction. Dad gave me a set of Filibuster fireworks. I was absolutely itching to set something on fire. As soon as I got to Hogwarts, I snuck into a bathroom and set them off in a toilet. In two words, sparks flew." He winked broadly at the world.

"Wow. Should I do that?"

Lily glared at Sirius. Feeling obligated as a Prefect, she stopped Amelia's thoughts of prankster glory early. "Sirius didn't tell you, Amelia, about the trouble he got in for setting off those fireworks."

James obviously didn't feel as obligated. "Hey! If she wants to be a prankster, it's perfectly fine, isn't it, Sirius?"

"Why, it's positively spiffing! After all, she's MY little sister, isn't she?" He made a shoo-ing gesture at Lily. "Go find some other little goody-two-shoes protegee. Don't go polluting young Amelia's thoughts! Go, go!" Sirius laughed at the indignant look on Lily's face. "No, I'm just kidding. But really, Lily, loosen up!"

"Yeah, loosen up!" Remus chimed in. "Amelia very well might become the fifth Marauder!"

James kicked Remus under the table for coming so close to revealing the secret. "We're pretty much etched in stone as a quartet. No offense, Amelia."

Sirius took out that piece of parchment again and scribbled something down very quickly.

"What's that, Padfoot?" Peter craned his neck around Lily and tried to get a good look at the parchment.

"Oh...just some notes. I'm going to write a book," he explained, but his haste in crumpling it back into his pocket stated plainly that he was lying. At least, partially.

Peter snorted. "Okay. A book. Whatever." He reached across Amelia to get the butter, and Lily thought Amelia was going to tip over backwards in the chair. The round little girl looked like she wanted to sink back into the chair. "Something wrong?" Peter asked as he buttered his toast.

"Oh...no." Amelia put on a smile.

"Just nervous about classes, right?"

"Yup." She quickly cast an uneasy glance across the table to Lily.

Lily smiled disarmingly and started eating her breakfast, even though she was in absolutely no mood to eat anything. She could tell that Amelia knew something, had a strange feeling about Peter.

Lily didn't want her to have that burden.

A/N: Sorry there's no action this time, but what's a brick wall without the cement
holding them together? @-------------------