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Chapter Five
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Lily and Ariella walked into the Great Hall together at breakfast time on Monday morning, and went to sit down on the side of the Gryffindor table that faced the Slytherin table, alongside James, Sirius, Remus and Peter, so they could watch Snape and Scarlett.
"Mworning," said James through a mouthful of pancake.
"Morning, Potter," said Lily, wishing he could keep his mouth shut while he ate. Remus smiled at Ariella as she took the seat next to him, and Lily sat down on the other side of Ariella.
"Anything happened yet?" Ariella asked, pouring herself some juice.
"No," Remus sighed. "Snape isn't down here yet."
"Probably practicing snogging Scarlett," James said. Ariella made a small whimpy noise in her throat. It was her turn tonight.
Lily buttered her toast and took a bite. She couldn't help but notice that Sirius was being particularly quiet so far today, and rather interested in his breakfast. Lily had the feeling that he was sitting deliberately between Remus and Peter because he was displeased with James for last night's interruption. Of course, Lily thought desperately, she might just be imagining things, and getting her hopes up thinking that Sirius actually liked her.
He was the one that took her hand, not Lily ...
Oh shut up, Lily told her brain.
"Look, here comes the greasy-haired git!" James hissed down the table. Indeed, Snape had just entered the Great Hall behind a tall Ravenclaw boy. In unison, the six Gryffindors dropped whatever they were holding onto their plate, and watched Snape with grins -- apart from James, who was watching with the usual smirk on his face, present whenever his pranks were taking place.
Scarlett glared at Snape as he sat down cosily beside her with her usual screwed-up snooty expression, except when he sat down beside her it was mingled with a bit of disgust. Scarlett shuffled away from Snape to be closer to her friend, while Snape apparently tried to make conversation. Scarlett answered quickly and snappishly, and then carried on talking to her friend.
"Check out his face," Ariella observed. Snape poured himself some juice, frowning, obviously confused by Scarlett's behaviour. Her hand was resting on the table.
"He's looking at her hand," said Remus.
"He's going to --" James began, but before he had finished Snape had taken an obvious and nervous deep breath, and placed his hand on Scarlett's.
"You FREAK!" Scarlett's voice echoed around the Great Hall where at least half of the school was having breakfast, and at the Gryffindor table Lily, Ariella and the boys were watching with expressions of absolute glee. Too pleased to laugh just yet, they looked on at Snape and Scarlett. Snape's crooked face was distorted with surprise, clearly disbelieving what had just happened. Scarlett stormed out of the Hall, her nose in the air, looking seriously offended.
Lily and Ariella began to giggle madly, and the laughter spread right through the group to James, who started rocking back and forth in his chair, positively in stitches. Sirius and Remus high-fived -- yes, even Remus found this amusing. Peter swung his short little legs and laughed into his plate, while Lily and Ariella continued giggling, their hands covered over their mouths to stifle the noise. Lily wondered if any of the teachers might be just a bit suspicious of them giggling so much at their table. The Transfiguration teacher, Professor McGonagall, certainly seemed to be looking in their direction.
:::
Ariella took the bottle of Polyjuice Potion in one hand, and the Slytherin robes under her other arm, and headed out of the empty classroom to the nearby bathroom, leaving Sirius, Lily and Peter to watch the events on the Marauder's Map.
"I will be all right, won't I, Lily?" Ariella asked anxiously before she went to get changed.
"Sure," Lily replied. "Look at me, I'm alive and kicking -- at the moment."
Ariella winced.
"Oh, Ariella, trust me!" Lily said. She lowered her voice. "If you kiss him ... pretend that it's Remus!"
Ariella lightened up. "Oh! Y'know, that's a good idea, Lily!"
Lily winked and let Ariella go get ready.
"So," said Lily, jumping up to sit on a table next to the one Sirius was at, watching over the Marauder's Map, "what do we do now?"
Sirius looked up and grinned at Lily quickly. "Wait, Evans. It's what we did last night."
"Oh."
Lily examined her fingers absent-mindedly and swung her legs, very conscious of the fact that she was in the same room as Sirius, alone. Well, almost alone. Peter was there, but he barely counted.
"Erm ... Lily?" Sirius said, perhaps slightly nervously, but maybe Lily imagined that. "D'you want to watch the map? Over here?"
"Oh!" said Lily. "Sure!"
Lily hopped off her table and leant over the next table to survey the map, her side pressed next to Sirius'. And she liked it.
"So, where are we, Sirius?" Lily asked softly.
"Uh ... there," Sirius answered, reaching his arm across Lily's body to point to a room, which had three labelled dots in a small classroom; the two labelled 'Sirius Black' and 'Lily Evans' very close together, and the 'Peter Pettigrew' dot was wandering around by the window.
"Wow," Lily breathed. "How on earth did you ever make this map? Was it hard?"
"It was ... difficult, yes," Sirius answered smoothly, "but with the help of a big old Charm book from the Restricted Section, and our own knowledge of the school grounds, of course, we managed it in a few weeks."
"You're brilliant," said Lily softly, and Lily and Sirius' looked at each other. Lily stared into the silvery excitement of Sirius' eyes, and Sirius stared back into the emerald wonder of Lily's eyes. The temperature could have been soaring in the space between their faces.
Sirius straightened up and promptly looked behind him to check what Peter was doing, obviously remembering that Peter was in the room as well.
"Oh! Erm ... Wormtail? Peter? Professor McGonagall is snooping pretty close to where James and Remus have Scarlett, in the broom cupboard. You might want to ... I dunno, distract her? I dunno. Do something? See you later, Peter."
Peter obeyed Sirius' command headed out of the room. Sirius walked over to the window where Peter had been, and started running his hands through his hair, staring out at the many towers and turrets of Hogwarts Castle. Lily began examining her fingers again.
Sirius spun around, dropped his hands from his head and looked Lily straight in the eye, his mouth slightly open. Lily looked at Sirius with wide eyes.
"L-Lily!" said softly, his mouth opening and closing a lot, lost for words. "I ... er ... um. Last night, Lily, before James came in ... remember?"
"Yes, I do remember, Sirius," said Lily. She stood up.
"Well Lily, I ..."
Sirius weaved his way through the desks to stand in front of Lily. Lily didn't dare to examine how she felt at that moment.
"Lily," Sirius breathed, tucking a piece of crimson hair that had fallen on her face behind her ear. He put his hand on her cheek, and ...
The door flew open, and Mirabelle Scarlett stood in the door way, tears rolling down her face. Sirius snapped up straight and put one hand on his waist while the other trailed through his hair again, and Lily sat back down on the table, her heart still beating like a drum and her eyes still quite large.
"I ... I can't do it! I saw him in the corridor with his greasy hair and pimples and ... oh Lily, I can't do it!" she said, wiping her eyes.
"It's OK, Ariella," said Lily. She jumped off her table, guided her to a chair and sat her down. "It's fine."
"I'm so sorry Sirius," said Ariella, turning to face him. "I'm just so sorry."
Sirius took a breath.
"Yes," he said dryly. "Personally, it would give me nightmares for many years." He turned to Lily. "We've still got time. You can do it tonight. There's plenty of Polyjuice left."
"Tonight?" said Lily.
"You did a brilliant job last night, Lily," said Sirius. "Surely you can do it again tonight? Please?"
Lily frowned and sighed. How could she resist?
"Oh, I suppose I could. Give me the robes and the potion."
:::
Lily, assuming the form of Scarlett, strode down the corridor by the dungeons, following the steps that Snape had taken on the Map. He had been heading to their common room slowly, which was good for Lily, because if she walked fast enough she could perhaps catch up.
While Lily hurried down the corridor, her mind was going ten times faster than she was walking. The little flask of spare Polyjuice Potion was jingling in her pocket, and so was her brain. Sirius had definitely come onto her in the classroom back there, there wasn't a doubt in her mind. Hell, he almost kissed her ... and right now Lily felt that she could murder Ariella for coming in at that very moment!
Where the heck was she going? These passages were like mazes, the entry to the common room was well hidden. Snape had definitely been lurking around this area, the map told her that -- there's that suit of armour that he passed when Lily was looking at the Map up in the classroom. He was moving so slowly, he couldn't be far away ...
Lily had just rounded yet another corner, and there he was, skulking down the passage about fifty feet ahead.
"Sevvy," Lily cooed in her most sultry voice, running up to Snape, "I've been looking everywhere for you!"
Snape spun around on his slimy little feet and faced Lily.
"M-Mirabelle?" he said, an eyebrow raised. "We saw each other in the corridor before, and you ran off ..."
Oh crap, Lily thought.
"Um ... yes! I know! But that was because, ah, I remembered I had to quickly send an owl to ... um, someone."
"Oh," said Snape. "Was Magie there?"
"Magie?" Lily asked, puzzled.
"Your owl's name is Magie ..."
"Oh ... oh! Yes, that's right!" said Lily hurriedly. Because of all the time she'd wasted looking for Snape, she only had twenty minutes left in Scarlett's form. "Come on, Sevvy, in this dungeon right here ..."
"But Mirabelle," said Snape, as Lily pushed him into the dungeon, "this morning you ..."
Lily rolled her eyes, with a grin on her face.
"Sevvy, I'm sorry," she said dismissively, forcing Snape down onto an old wooden bench, "but I thought you were Lucius Malfoy, and to be quite honest he really gives me the creeps ..."
"Oh ... OK, Mirabelle," said Snape. Snape didn't get much more of a chance to talk, because Lily had leaped on him and shoved her chest in his face.
"How're you feeling, Sevvy?" she asked, leaning back, stroking his bony chest with her finger.
"I ... I ..."
"Now, Sevvy, remember what we talked about last night? I really think that we should, like, get together, and one day we'll go all the way."
Snape gulped loudly.
Lily continued with the sexy seductism for few more minutes, kissing him as few times as she could get away with. Each time she used her old trick of pretending it was Sirius, pretending she was kissing him, not ugly Snape, something she had come so close to doing earlier in the evening ...
"W-what's that in your pocket?" Snape asked, and Lily eased off him. "That hard thing?"
"Oh," replied Lily. "It's -- er -- just a little flask of pumpkin juice I take with me anywhere."
Lily snuck a glimpse of her watch, and saw that her hour was almost up. She pulled out the flask of Polyjuice and took another quick sip.
"Ahhh. That's better. Now ..."
Lily resumed, and leant over Snape again. She gave him another kiss and shoved herself on top of him again.
"M-Mirabelle?"
"What?" Lily said, puzzled.
"My hands ..."
Lily leant off him again and looked at his hands. The skin ... it looked like it was boiling or something ... oh, no, it couldn't be ... Snape was turning into Scarlett as well!
Lily knew that she had to get out, and she had to get out fast.
"Oh, gosh, it's late Sevvy! I really must go... ciao, Sevvy!"
Lily jumped off, leaving a transforming Snape there on the table, and sprinted away.
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A/N: I apologise SO, SO MUCH for not getting this chapter up as quick as the others! A few of you have been reviewing and asking where the next chapter is, and I've been feeling so guilty, so I sat myself down today and finished the chapter! My excuse is that I've had a LOT of homework and, unfortunately, homework does come before fanfics, according to my parents at least. Stupid English and German teachers, giving me so many essays ... hmph. I'm in Australia and I don't have summer holidays now, but I do have a short break where I might be able to squeeze in a few more chapters.
This chapter is about twice as long as normal, so you've got a bit of a treat. :)
So. Never fear, the chapter's FINALLY here! It's starting to get interesting now! I'm planning to wrap this up at ten chapters, so it's not going to go on forever (lol), but believe me, there's plenty that's going to happen between here and the end of chapter ten! Perhaps I'll write a sequel ... I'm thinking about it.
Last, I REALLY appreciate every single review I get! I have around 30 now, and they've all been brilliant! I couldn't be more pleased with how my first fanfic is going! So, REVIEW if you love me ... hehe, mwah! xoxo DreamingPhoenix
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Chapter Five
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Lily and Ariella walked into the Great Hall together at breakfast time on Monday morning, and went to sit down on the side of the Gryffindor table that faced the Slytherin table, alongside James, Sirius, Remus and Peter, so they could watch Snape and Scarlett.
"Mworning," said James through a mouthful of pancake.
"Morning, Potter," said Lily, wishing he could keep his mouth shut while he ate. Remus smiled at Ariella as she took the seat next to him, and Lily sat down on the other side of Ariella.
"Anything happened yet?" Ariella asked, pouring herself some juice.
"No," Remus sighed. "Snape isn't down here yet."
"Probably practicing snogging Scarlett," James said. Ariella made a small whimpy noise in her throat. It was her turn tonight.
Lily buttered her toast and took a bite. She couldn't help but notice that Sirius was being particularly quiet so far today, and rather interested in his breakfast. Lily had the feeling that he was sitting deliberately between Remus and Peter because he was displeased with James for last night's interruption. Of course, Lily thought desperately, she might just be imagining things, and getting her hopes up thinking that Sirius actually liked her.
He was the one that took her hand, not Lily ...
Oh shut up, Lily told her brain.
"Look, here comes the greasy-haired git!" James hissed down the table. Indeed, Snape had just entered the Great Hall behind a tall Ravenclaw boy. In unison, the six Gryffindors dropped whatever they were holding onto their plate, and watched Snape with grins -- apart from James, who was watching with the usual smirk on his face, present whenever his pranks were taking place.
Scarlett glared at Snape as he sat down cosily beside her with her usual screwed-up snooty expression, except when he sat down beside her it was mingled with a bit of disgust. Scarlett shuffled away from Snape to be closer to her friend, while Snape apparently tried to make conversation. Scarlett answered quickly and snappishly, and then carried on talking to her friend.
"Check out his face," Ariella observed. Snape poured himself some juice, frowning, obviously confused by Scarlett's behaviour. Her hand was resting on the table.
"He's looking at her hand," said Remus.
"He's going to --" James began, but before he had finished Snape had taken an obvious and nervous deep breath, and placed his hand on Scarlett's.
"You FREAK!" Scarlett's voice echoed around the Great Hall where at least half of the school was having breakfast, and at the Gryffindor table Lily, Ariella and the boys were watching with expressions of absolute glee. Too pleased to laugh just yet, they looked on at Snape and Scarlett. Snape's crooked face was distorted with surprise, clearly disbelieving what had just happened. Scarlett stormed out of the Hall, her nose in the air, looking seriously offended.
Lily and Ariella began to giggle madly, and the laughter spread right through the group to James, who started rocking back and forth in his chair, positively in stitches. Sirius and Remus high-fived -- yes, even Remus found this amusing. Peter swung his short little legs and laughed into his plate, while Lily and Ariella continued giggling, their hands covered over their mouths to stifle the noise. Lily wondered if any of the teachers might be just a bit suspicious of them giggling so much at their table. The Transfiguration teacher, Professor McGonagall, certainly seemed to be looking in their direction.
:::
Ariella took the bottle of Polyjuice Potion in one hand, and the Slytherin robes under her other arm, and headed out of the empty classroom to the nearby bathroom, leaving Sirius, Lily and Peter to watch the events on the Marauder's Map.
"I will be all right, won't I, Lily?" Ariella asked anxiously before she went to get changed.
"Sure," Lily replied. "Look at me, I'm alive and kicking -- at the moment."
Ariella winced.
"Oh, Ariella, trust me!" Lily said. She lowered her voice. "If you kiss him ... pretend that it's Remus!"
Ariella lightened up. "Oh! Y'know, that's a good idea, Lily!"
Lily winked and let Ariella go get ready.
"So," said Lily, jumping up to sit on a table next to the one Sirius was at, watching over the Marauder's Map, "what do we do now?"
Sirius looked up and grinned at Lily quickly. "Wait, Evans. It's what we did last night."
"Oh."
Lily examined her fingers absent-mindedly and swung her legs, very conscious of the fact that she was in the same room as Sirius, alone. Well, almost alone. Peter was there, but he barely counted.
"Erm ... Lily?" Sirius said, perhaps slightly nervously, but maybe Lily imagined that. "D'you want to watch the map? Over here?"
"Oh!" said Lily. "Sure!"
Lily hopped off her table and leant over the next table to survey the map, her side pressed next to Sirius'. And she liked it.
"So, where are we, Sirius?" Lily asked softly.
"Uh ... there," Sirius answered, reaching his arm across Lily's body to point to a room, which had three labelled dots in a small classroom; the two labelled 'Sirius Black' and 'Lily Evans' very close together, and the 'Peter Pettigrew' dot was wandering around by the window.
"Wow," Lily breathed. "How on earth did you ever make this map? Was it hard?"
"It was ... difficult, yes," Sirius answered smoothly, "but with the help of a big old Charm book from the Restricted Section, and our own knowledge of the school grounds, of course, we managed it in a few weeks."
"You're brilliant," said Lily softly, and Lily and Sirius' looked at each other. Lily stared into the silvery excitement of Sirius' eyes, and Sirius stared back into the emerald wonder of Lily's eyes. The temperature could have been soaring in the space between their faces.
Sirius straightened up and promptly looked behind him to check what Peter was doing, obviously remembering that Peter was in the room as well.
"Oh! Erm ... Wormtail? Peter? Professor McGonagall is snooping pretty close to where James and Remus have Scarlett, in the broom cupboard. You might want to ... I dunno, distract her? I dunno. Do something? See you later, Peter."
Peter obeyed Sirius' command headed out of the room. Sirius walked over to the window where Peter had been, and started running his hands through his hair, staring out at the many towers and turrets of Hogwarts Castle. Lily began examining her fingers again.
Sirius spun around, dropped his hands from his head and looked Lily straight in the eye, his mouth slightly open. Lily looked at Sirius with wide eyes.
"L-Lily!" said softly, his mouth opening and closing a lot, lost for words. "I ... er ... um. Last night, Lily, before James came in ... remember?"
"Yes, I do remember, Sirius," said Lily. She stood up.
"Well Lily, I ..."
Sirius weaved his way through the desks to stand in front of Lily. Lily didn't dare to examine how she felt at that moment.
"Lily," Sirius breathed, tucking a piece of crimson hair that had fallen on her face behind her ear. He put his hand on her cheek, and ...
The door flew open, and Mirabelle Scarlett stood in the door way, tears rolling down her face. Sirius snapped up straight and put one hand on his waist while the other trailed through his hair again, and Lily sat back down on the table, her heart still beating like a drum and her eyes still quite large.
"I ... I can't do it! I saw him in the corridor with his greasy hair and pimples and ... oh Lily, I can't do it!" she said, wiping her eyes.
"It's OK, Ariella," said Lily. She jumped off her table, guided her to a chair and sat her down. "It's fine."
"I'm so sorry Sirius," said Ariella, turning to face him. "I'm just so sorry."
Sirius took a breath.
"Yes," he said dryly. "Personally, it would give me nightmares for many years." He turned to Lily. "We've still got time. You can do it tonight. There's plenty of Polyjuice left."
"Tonight?" said Lily.
"You did a brilliant job last night, Lily," said Sirius. "Surely you can do it again tonight? Please?"
Lily frowned and sighed. How could she resist?
"Oh, I suppose I could. Give me the robes and the potion."
:::
Lily, assuming the form of Scarlett, strode down the corridor by the dungeons, following the steps that Snape had taken on the Map. He had been heading to their common room slowly, which was good for Lily, because if she walked fast enough she could perhaps catch up.
While Lily hurried down the corridor, her mind was going ten times faster than she was walking. The little flask of spare Polyjuice Potion was jingling in her pocket, and so was her brain. Sirius had definitely come onto her in the classroom back there, there wasn't a doubt in her mind. Hell, he almost kissed her ... and right now Lily felt that she could murder Ariella for coming in at that very moment!
Where the heck was she going? These passages were like mazes, the entry to the common room was well hidden. Snape had definitely been lurking around this area, the map told her that -- there's that suit of armour that he passed when Lily was looking at the Map up in the classroom. He was moving so slowly, he couldn't be far away ...
Lily had just rounded yet another corner, and there he was, skulking down the passage about fifty feet ahead.
"Sevvy," Lily cooed in her most sultry voice, running up to Snape, "I've been looking everywhere for you!"
Snape spun around on his slimy little feet and faced Lily.
"M-Mirabelle?" he said, an eyebrow raised. "We saw each other in the corridor before, and you ran off ..."
Oh crap, Lily thought.
"Um ... yes! I know! But that was because, ah, I remembered I had to quickly send an owl to ... um, someone."
"Oh," said Snape. "Was Magie there?"
"Magie?" Lily asked, puzzled.
"Your owl's name is Magie ..."
"Oh ... oh! Yes, that's right!" said Lily hurriedly. Because of all the time she'd wasted looking for Snape, she only had twenty minutes left in Scarlett's form. "Come on, Sevvy, in this dungeon right here ..."
"But Mirabelle," said Snape, as Lily pushed him into the dungeon, "this morning you ..."
Lily rolled her eyes, with a grin on her face.
"Sevvy, I'm sorry," she said dismissively, forcing Snape down onto an old wooden bench, "but I thought you were Lucius Malfoy, and to be quite honest he really gives me the creeps ..."
"Oh ... OK, Mirabelle," said Snape. Snape didn't get much more of a chance to talk, because Lily had leaped on him and shoved her chest in his face.
"How're you feeling, Sevvy?" she asked, leaning back, stroking his bony chest with her finger.
"I ... I ..."
"Now, Sevvy, remember what we talked about last night? I really think that we should, like, get together, and one day we'll go all the way."
Snape gulped loudly.
Lily continued with the sexy seductism for few more minutes, kissing him as few times as she could get away with. Each time she used her old trick of pretending it was Sirius, pretending she was kissing him, not ugly Snape, something she had come so close to doing earlier in the evening ...
"W-what's that in your pocket?" Snape asked, and Lily eased off him. "That hard thing?"
"Oh," replied Lily. "It's -- er -- just a little flask of pumpkin juice I take with me anywhere."
Lily snuck a glimpse of her watch, and saw that her hour was almost up. She pulled out the flask of Polyjuice and took another quick sip.
"Ahhh. That's better. Now ..."
Lily resumed, and leant over Snape again. She gave him another kiss and shoved herself on top of him again.
"M-Mirabelle?"
"What?" Lily said, puzzled.
"My hands ..."
Lily leant off him again and looked at his hands. The skin ... it looked like it was boiling or something ... oh, no, it couldn't be ... Snape was turning into Scarlett as well!
Lily knew that she had to get out, and she had to get out fast.
"Oh, gosh, it's late Sevvy! I really must go... ciao, Sevvy!"
Lily jumped off, leaving a transforming Snape there on the table, and sprinted away.
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A/N: I apologise SO, SO MUCH for not getting this chapter up as quick as the others! A few of you have been reviewing and asking where the next chapter is, and I've been feeling so guilty, so I sat myself down today and finished the chapter! My excuse is that I've had a LOT of homework and, unfortunately, homework does come before fanfics, according to my parents at least. Stupid English and German teachers, giving me so many essays ... hmph. I'm in Australia and I don't have summer holidays now, but I do have a short break where I might be able to squeeze in a few more chapters.
This chapter is about twice as long as normal, so you've got a bit of a treat. :)
So. Never fear, the chapter's FINALLY here! It's starting to get interesting now! I'm planning to wrap this up at ten chapters, so it's not going to go on forever (lol), but believe me, there's plenty that's going to happen between here and the end of chapter ten! Perhaps I'll write a sequel ... I'm thinking about it.
Last, I REALLY appreciate every single review I get! I have around 30 now, and they've all been brilliant! I couldn't be more pleased with how my first fanfic is going! So, REVIEW if you love me ... hehe, mwah! xoxo DreamingPhoenix
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