Living A Legend
Book 1- A Clash of Wills
Chapter 13- Wizard Hearts and Letters
The next morning over breakfast there was much conversation regarding the famous John Potter.
"He's so cool!" Sirius bragged, "Not only is he a famous Quidditch player but now he is an auror too! I wish my brother were like that."
James grinned, proud and glad for the attention.
Lily however was not buying in. "Hmmph," she sighed and rolled her eyes. "So what if he's an auror. I wouldn't want to be one anyway."
James scooted down the bench to sit next to the red head. "Oh but Lily, Aurors are so cool! They are always going on adventures and catching bad guys and solving mysteries! Of course it is a dangerous job, but somebody has to do it. And they get to be famous if they catch some bad guys."
Lily rolled her eyes again. It was getting to be a familiar reflex. "Yeah, but I bet mostly they just sit around and do paperwork. Anyways, Aurors get killed a lot. I wouldn't want to be one."
"Well your just a girl anyways. Aurors have to be really brave and strong and smart!" James raved, not noticing how Lily's eyes were narrowing dangerously.
"What's that have to do with it?" she asked hostilely. "Girls are smarter than boys and braver and sometimes even stronger."
James laughed. "Girls are not stronger than boys. Boys are way stronger."
"Wanna bet?" Lily glared.
"Yeah but I wouldn't want to embarrass you. You're just a little girl." He taunted, getting into the mood now.
With that, Lily jumped out of her seat, physically pushed James out of his seat and dumped her carton of milk over his head. Then she noticed that everyone was watching her little display, so she turned quickly and ran back to the common room.
"Oh Dora I hate him!" she vented, during Defense Against the Dark Arts later that day. "I don't know how you put up with him, honestly. 'Boys are better than girls' humph! I can't believe I'm going to have to deal with him for six more years!"
Despite her grievances Lily stopped complaining when Professor Lacy began to talk to the class about basic hex blocking charms. There was nothing which could calm Lily down better than good old fashioned school work. Besides, she found some of the material very interesting.
Ever since the assembly, many of the students had been more eager than usual to pay attention in Defense against the Dark Arts. "After all," Lily chided, "It could save your life!"
James and the other Marauders were more interested in their studies as well, but for another reason. It had instantly become the boys' ambition to become like James' older brother. Being an auror was now the cool thing to be.
First, Lacy took turns sending a mild jelly legs curse towards each student, and they had to block it in time.
Lily had no trouble blocking the curse, but Peter and Dora had no such luck.
"I want you to get into pairs and practice. Remember, only use the jelly legs curse." Professor Lacy instructed.
Lily quickly grabbed Brittany's arm before Dora got a chance to catch her eye. Lily loved Dora to death but she would prefer a partner who knew what she was doing.
Lily and Brittany took turns blocking the hex perfectly, with no mistakes or unfortunate catastrophes. Dora too, managed to block the hex, but her partner, Remus, looked a bit queasy when she attempted to send a jelly legs spell his way. She ended up, much to the amusement of the class covering his hair in Jello.
Luckily, Remus only laughed and did not blame poor Dora, once Professor Lacy righted the situation.
James and Sirius seemed to be trying their hardest to out do each other in the creative curse department, neither of them considered sticking to the jelly legs hex. And while both boys were fairly proficient at blocking curses, they found that laughter made their reflexes grow much slower, and James ended up with icicles protruding from his nose, while Sirius started to grow another head. The result was a little funny, but mostly just frightening, and the pair was sent to the hospital wing at once.
The next morning when Lily entered the dining hall, she was surprised at the subdued and gloomy atmosphere. With the exception of several Slytherins, the entire school seemed to be a bit downcast.
Lily grabbed a seat in between Remus and Brittany. "What's going on?" she whispered. "Why is everyone so depressed?"
Brittany said nothing, but handed her a copy of the Daily Prophet.
The picture on the front page caught Lily's attention. It depicted a small cottage with the symbol of a skull with a snake protruding from it's mouth looming over the scene. Lily recognized the sign as the Dark Mark, which Voldemort left behind after he killed.
Lily read the headline fearfully, reluctant to see what horrors it might hold.
"Three Aurors and Two Muggles Dead in Latest Voldemort Killing," it read. Lily gasped and skimmed through the article. With Sirius's father an auror, and John Potter training to become one, the article hit home. Luckily, Lily did not know any of the wizards who had been killed.
"It's weird, you know," James spoke softly, "that he could have taken out three aurors like that. Just killed them, snuffed them right out, like they weren't even a challenge to him." His voice wavered and Lily wondered if he was worrying about his brother.
The table sat quietly for a while. Finally Peter spoke, his voice panicky and high pitched, "Suppose we can't fight him? What if we aren't strong enough? Do you know what I think, I think that no one alive can defeat Voldemort. I think that he will kill everyone!"
"Peter!" Sirius shouted in annoyance. "Don't be ridiculous. This incident was unfortunate, but I'm sure there are aurors out there who can beat him. Voldemort might be strong, but he is not invincible."
"I wouldn't be so sure," Peter commented glumly.
Something about Peter's tone repulsed Lily. It was as if he had already given up. She felt sorry for him, he was always the weak one, the once who was afraid; but she could never condone his passive behavior.
In potions, the students were learning a particularly difficult concoction, which detected the presence of a harmful solution in a drink.
"Pay attention students! For this potion could possibly save your lives," Ludwick announced, and then under his breath he added, "if they are even worth saving."
Lily and James were working together, as usual, and Ludwick seemed in a particularly bad humor. He patrolled the room anxiously, stopping frequently to insult them on some minor detail or another.
Near the end of class, Ludwick announced that he would randomly be testing student's potions by distributing glasses of liquid, some poisoned, some not, and forcing the students to drink them if they could not detect some sort of harmful poison with their solution.
Lily and James were not afraid, for once their potion had turned out perfectly. The two had worked out a system to divide up the labor. Lily did the first half of the potion, and James the second. This way they had fewer clashes, and their margin of error was reduced by quite a bit.
Dora and Peter however, seemed to be sweating it quite a bit.
Ludwick picked up on this, and selected them to test their solution. Instead of emitting a yellow glow, to indicate a poison present, the solution turned an alarming orange color and proceeded to advance to a rolling boil.
"Well, as strange as that effect is, it does not indicate a poison. Kindly digest your liquid." Ludwick ordered, his lips twisted into a cruel smile.
"But it's boiling hot!" Peter protested weakly.
"Fine," Ludwick turned on them, scowling magnificently. "Detentions for you both then!"
Snape and Malfoy could be heard sniggering from the back of the classroom. Lily turned and shot them an evil glare.
That night, Brittany mused on how lucky she had been so far. "Wow, I can't believe the two of you have both received detentions, and I have not a mark to my name! And I'm probably the baddest of the three of us!"
Dora shrugged sadly. "I hope my mother doesn't find out. She'll be ever so disappointed at me. And I'm sure to have bad marks as well!"
"Don't worry Dora! Detentions are nothing! I bet you'll have to do something very easy. You can always convince Peter to do the work for you, you know," Lily tried to cheer her friend up.
"Nice try Lily! I still remember how miserable you were after your first Detention. I only hope mine's not with Ludwick." Dora shuddered, recalling Lily's state following her horrible detention spent in the dungeons with James.
On a cheerier note, the weather was beginning to improve a bit. Near the end of January, Dumbledore announced that in honor of St. Valentines day, a special ball would be held for fourth years and above. Younger students were to have a special Valentines day feast instead, as they were considered too young and immature to attend the ball.
Lily couldn't imagine why anyone would want to attend a ball, and she dreaded the thought of even attending the feast, but in the end, she agreed to go. She knew that there was no use in avoiding the day all together.
Most of the Muggle-born first years did not have dress robes, and this included Lily. Luckily, Brittany had robes to spare, and lent both Lily and Dora sets.
Lily's robes were a pale pink, which Elisabeth Ester told her clashed horribly with her hair. But Brittany and Dora convinced Lily that she was one of the few red-heads who could actually pull off the color and ultimately Lily resigned to wearing the robes.
Dora's robes were gold, and were the oldest of Brittany's three sets, but Brittany managed to spruce it up magically, and Dora too, ended up looking nice.
Brittany's own robes were a dark green, and spotted with tiny white flowers, which added a very pretty touch. All of the other girls were jealous of Brittany, for she had the prettiest robes of any of the Gryffindor first years.
When they entered the hall, Lily was very careful to be seated between her two friends, mortified at the thought of being associated with any one boy on Valentines day.
Dumbledore stood out among the students, wearing bright red robes in honor of the holiday. He stood and raised his goblet at the start of the feast. "Hello young students! Although you are not to be attending the ball this evening, I hope that you will have a wonderful time! Here's to young love!"
Students dutifully raised their glasses. Lily rolled her eyes as she did so.
Instantly the tables were filled with a variety of goodies. Unlike at other occasions, the food present seemed to be composed entirely of sweets. There was ice cream, and cookies; chocolates and cakes; as well as hundreds of other mouth watering deserts. Along with these, were an abundance of wizard hearts, fist sized candies that came with a packet of magical frosting, with which the giver could write a message which would disappear, and appear only when arriving in the hands of the recipient.
Lily ignored the wizard hearts all together, concentrating instead on the platter of pastries which lay before her. She shot Brittany a dirty look when the girl received a wizard heart from Sirius, and proceeded to giggle mysteriously.
When Lily felt she could eat no more, she shoved her plate away dramatically, and leaned back in her chair. She stretched luxuriously, and then smarted as she was pelted in the head with something hard.
Lily turned quickly enough to see James darting forward to hide his face, and giggling madly with Sirius.
She glared and picked up the item which had been thrown at her. It was a wizard heart.
Lily's face grew even more red with fury as the message popped up. "Lily, my love, will you be my valentine?" She was just about to chuck it back at him when the message faded and a new one popped up. "P.S. your head was the biggest target!"
"James! You jerk!" Lily cried, chucking the offending candy back in his direction.
Unfortunately she missed, hitting Sirius instead, who decided to take it personal, and took off chasing Lily around the room, as she shrieked and dashed away.
Finally Sirius desisted, and Lily had a chance to catch her breath. She stopped in time to hear, a blond Slytherin girl, who looked alarmingly like Petunia had at her age comment, "This is why first years are not allowed to the ball," in a snide tone.
"Why Narcissa," a boy sitting next to her interceded, "You are a first year."
"Yes," Narcissa wrinkled her nose, "But I am better than them, you see."
Lily made a point to laugh loud enough for the girl to hear. "Better than us, what a riot!" Then she dashed over to her friends to ridicule James further, and complain about how badly she had been insulted.
At one point, Severus made his way over to Lily with a strange look on his face. He thrust a heart in Lily's face and grimaced. "What is the meaning of this?" He asked loudly.
Lily looked at him confused for a moment and then read the heart.
"Dearest Severus, I love you and your greasy hair! Love forever, Lily," the heart read.
"What!?" Lily shrieked in horror. "I didn't write this."
She turned her gaze in the direction of the Marauders, all of which were laughing at an alarming volume.
"Who did this?" Lily cried dangerously, ignoring Snape completely. "Sirius?" she asked warningly, as he slapped the table in mirth. "James?" Then she turned cunningly. "Peter?"
Peter turned red and blurted out, "It was James! Not me! I didn't do it!"
At that point, the hall erupted in chaos. Sirius instantly started yelling at Peter, Brittany fell off her seat in hysterics, Severus threw the wizard heart at Lily, missing and hitting a second year hufflepuff instead and Lily chased the terrified James across the hall, finally cornering him and proceeding to hit him over the head repeatedly with a spoon.
It took quite some time for everybody to calm down, despite Remus's best attempts to make peace.
The next morning, Lily awoke in a surprisingly good mood. Dora and Brittany had already left the dorm, so Lily headed downstairs to the common room alone, and collapsed in a large easy chair, deciding that since there were no classes for over an hour, she might as well wait for her two friends to come along.
A few minutes later, she grew impatient. Neither Brittany nor Dora had arrived, but a group of older students were huddled together, sighing dramatically and speaking in whispers. Lily had no wish to overhear, so she turned her head and considered going back upstairs.
At that moment, James tumbled noisily down the stairs, being chased by Sirius and Remus, the latter of which was tiredly rubbing his eyes.
Lily noticed that the students in the corner suddenly grew hushed and began to stare at the boys. One of them said something that sounded like, "Poor James!" under her breath.
James looked confused but didn't pay very much attention to them.
Sirius, grabbed Lily by the wrist, pulling her out of the chair. "Come on Lily! Breakfast time!"
"I don't want to eat with you!" she protested, to no avail.
"Don't be lazy, my little red head! I need someone to pester. You are now my next target!"
With that, she gave in and allowed herself to be coerced down to the Dining hall.
When they entered the hall, all eyes turned to them, and silence overtook the hall. "Who died?" Sirius joked, only to find himself subject to various degrees of cold glares.
Lily sat down next to Brittany, and James ended up on her other side, much to her dissatisfaction. Something strange was definitely going on here, Lily thought. People were whispering and everyone was staring.
Just then an owl swept down and dropped a letter to James. "I bet it's from John," he bragged to Lily condescendingly. "He has another match coming up soon, and I doubt you are invited this time!"
Lily glared, "Maybe he just wrote to tell you how much he likes me better than you! Don't be upset," she droned on, "I am so much less annoying."
Sirius snorted and Lily turned her fire gaze in his direction. Meanwhile, Brittany tugged at Lily's sleeve. Lily brushed her off, curious about James's letter.
She gazed around watching people around her, not understand why they were all staring and whispering. She figured it must be some new rumor, doubtless started by some Slytherins. Lily decided to pay no attention to it.
She glanced back at James, noticing his face had gone pale and he was clenching the letter rather tightly.
"What is it Potter?" Lily taunted, still angry from last night's fiasco. "Did your brother get kicked off the Quidditch team? Or perhaps it's from a doctor, telling you that stupidity does run in the family!"
"Lily!" hissed Brittany in an urgent and horrified tone, and gave her friend a quick blow to the arm.
In a swift and angry motion, James violently reached out, and shoved Lily as hard as he could. Startled, Lily toppled off her chair, tangling her legs. She screamed as she fell, and lay on the ground for a moment. She had hit her head against the table and it throbbed quite a bit.
James stood and looked terrified, his eyes seeming wild and alone. His lip quivered and he mouthed an apology, before rushing out the doorway as fast as he could, the letter a wad on the floor beside the red haired girl.
Lily was both shocked and confused. She fought back tears of outrage and hurt at being shoved to the floor in such a callous manner. Now people around her were looking at her and talking more loudly. Blushing furiously, Lily grabbed the letter and made a dash out the same door which James had gone through.
Once she was safely out of range of the Dining Hall, Lily unfolded the letter, tears of humiliation and pain running down her face.
Dear James,
I am so sorry to tell you this, and you may have already heard. Your brother was killed last night in a raid of an Auror's meeting by Voldemort. I know it must be very tough to hear this, and we are all still in shock. He died very bravely, standing up for what he believed in and I know he would have been very proud of you. I think it would be best if you returned home next weekend. The funeral will be held as soon as possible. I am sending a letter to Professor Dumbledore to excuse you from your next few classes. James, if you need to talk we are here for you.
Love,
Mom and Dad